Remote working has been on trend for now and companies all over the globe are adopting it to provide more flexibility to their staff. More so, the outbreak of Coronavirus has played an important role in forcing the pace of change around remote working and workers are quickly adapting schedules so that work from home is not only manageable but also productive.

Remote working can bring up some challenges, however, with some effective changes, it increases collaboration amongst teams. For the companies that have already adopted remote working, here are some of the benefits that they would enjoy:

• Business becomes more attractive to top talent
• Wages and services are cheaper in countries like India
• Better talent is often in other countries too
• Having team members who work at different time zones can give your business a 24/7 presence.
• It enables you to build a brand presence and expand in other markets.

Tools to manage work from home without the inconvenience is all you need in present-situation to manage the tasks of your team. Here are 6 remote work tools that we will be talking about and what are all the problems that they can solve:

1. Zoom: This tool offers a seamless video conferencing option with a distributed team.
2. Serene: To cut out distractions, stay focused on the task and do things faster.
3. Toggl: Time tracking tools for individuals and teams.
4. Monday: A project management tool for team managers and individual teams to complete entire projects faster.
5. Slack: A team collaboration and communication tool to make individual work easier.
6. InVision: A collaborative design prototype tool to turn concepts into reality

With these tools on your side, team members can achieve greater productivity, while working individually and collaborating with other members of the team. These tools help project managers and teams to be on the right track and make sure that they can meet deadlines.

Let’s have a closer look at each of these tools

1. Zoom:

The free version of the tool is available and the paid version starts from £11.99/mo per host.

Zoom is a widely used suite of communication and video conferencing tools designed for virtual business conferences, remote teams, webinars, and other corporate purposes. At this time, businesses need to act wisely to prevent Corona hinder their business plan, hiring remote developers is the best solution to retain productivity. Zoom is used for virtual meetings with remotely working teams, which we can use to run voice and video calls, but can also help you with various things. Zoom is compatible with Windows, iOS, Android, Web, and Mac.

Zoom-Tool for team communication and collaboration

Key Features:

• Video meetings: Remote teams can run one-to-one video calls and video meetings.
• Voice calls: Zoom allows you to connect with your team through group or one-to-one voice calls.
• Messaging: Zoom allows the team to send messages.
• Webinars: You can also use Zoom to host webinars.
• File-Sharing: Share files during or outside of video and voice chats for efficient collaboration.

Zoom is a feature-rich tool, which comes with very reasonable pricing. For group calls, you need to opt for the paid version of the application. The paid version of the tool starts from £11.99/mo per host. Here host is someone who invites team members to join meetings and up to 100 participants can join before you upgrade to a more expensive plan.

       2. Serene:

Serene is free of cost productivity tool for teams and remote workers. The app is compatible with Mac and helps individual team workers maximize efficiency by focusing on one goal at a time rather than dividing attention. Numerous studies show that multitasking kills productivity and this is a fundamental design principle behind Serene. The app’s tagline: “Multi-tasking is a myth. Single-tasking is a superpower”, says it all.

Serene-Tool to keep your team focussed

Key Features:

1. Website blocker: Block websites that distract you, such as news and social media websites.
2. App Blocker: Through this tool, you can also block apps that take your attention away from work, such as social media apps, email apps, and other such things.
3. Session timer: This feature shows how much time is left to complete the tasks, which motivates you to complete the task on time.
4. Day Planner: Define your goal for the day, set tasks, and get it done.
5. Phone silencer: Puts your phone on silent while working to avoid unnecessary distractions.

Serene asks team members to define a single goal at the beginning of each new day, which can be broken into small sessions to achieve the day’s objective. By keeping team members focused on the daily tasks and blocking out distractions, Serene helps the team in maximizing productivity.

3. Toggl:

Premium version available at $18/month per user.

Toggl is a time tracking app that runs in the background, while your team is working on any task. Essentially, it is designed to accurately track how much time it takes to complete any task and originally intended for freelancers to make sure that they are getting paid accurately. Now, Toggl is a productivity app designed for individual members and teams to maximize productivity. Above all, its data visualizations help you compare profits against time spent on labor costs so you can see which clients and projects are most profitable. It is one of the top tools available to manage remote teams amid corona-times.

Toggl-Time Tracking Tool

Toggl is compatible with Windows, Mac, Android, Firefox, Chrome and iOS.

Key Features:

1. Time Tracking: See how much time your team is taking to get things done.
2. Reports: See how productive you are being, and how profitable your time is with Toggl reports.
3. Boost profits: Check you are charging enough for the time it takes to complete projects.
4. Cross-platform:  Toogl’s apps work across just about every operating system and online so you can access it whenever you need and wherever you need.

You can also see how much team members are spending on individual tasks to monitor productivity and see if anyone’s taking too much or too little to perform any task.

4. Monday:

 Paid version starts from £15/month for 2 users and £34/month for 5 users.

There are plenty of project management tools designed for teams work remotely, but Monday offers a more advanced set of features than its alternatives like Trello.

Monday-Project Management and Task Management Tool

Key Features:

1. Project Management: Monday is an advanced project management tool that helps individual team members and large teams to hit a more ambitious target.
2. Task Management: Extensive task management tools that treat each task as a project goal.
3. Views: Multiple views that allow you to check timelines, individual workflows, reports, checklists, and project overviews.
4. File Sharing: Upload and share files can easily access the resources.
5. Weekly task loads: Team members can work on multiple projects without getting lost by Monday’s overview.

Tasks can be created and assigned to team members. Tasks start with a default status of “Not Started” and team members can update their statuses to “Working on it”, “Done” and “Stuck”. Team managers can assign tasks to individuals based on their location, experience, workload, and the rating of previously completed tasks.

5. Slack:

The free version is available, paid version starts from £5.25/month per user.

Slack is a tool that makes communication seamless for the remote team. The platform organizes conversations into channels, which team members can join and leave depending upon the project requirements. The flexibility to join and leave the group enables team members to get notifications that are only relevant to them.

Slack-Tool for Seamless Communication With Remote Team

Conversations can also be in threads, which make sure that chats don’t get in the way of main projects and topics.

Key Features:

• Instant messaging: Live communication and seamless collaboration between every team member.
• File Sharing: Drag and drop file sharing for PDFs, videos, images and other common file types.
• Voice and Video calls: Slack allows you to directly use voice and video call options.
• Screen Sharing: Allow team members to show their work to others in real-time for stronger collaboration.

There are myriad productivity tools available in the market and many of them offer a better set of features than Slack. However, Slack combines the basic communication essentials into easy-to-use and Single platform in a way no software can match.

6. InVision:

The free version of the tool is available, Team version starts from $99/month.

Whether you are redesigning your website, developing your own software, building a mobile app or creating a presentation with more than the average Powerpoint effort, InVision is a collaborative tool that saves the time of the design team in the concept stage.

InVision-Designing tool for remote team

Key Features:

• Prototyping:

This helps you to create interactive prototypes with working links, animation and effects so that team members can see what the final product will look like.

• Messaging:

Team members can work on ideas, provide feedback on the work of others and can also exchange ideas.

• Collaboration:

From idea creation to working on design files and file sharing, InVision is a top-notch collaborative tool remote designers need.

• Design Management:

Team leaders can manage projects and ongoing design processes.

• Integrated Development:

InVision creates a smooth design and development process where both teams can work and collaborate together as projects pass from one stage to the other.

For digital agencies, InVision is an important tool for helping our design team work together. It is also used by some of the prominent tech firms, startups, online brands, and media organizations. Above all, it is the collaborative design tools created by remote designers and this is why it deserves a place on this list.

How far will your remote team go?

Productivity tools are crucial for every business as they are the only connection remote teams have to rely on, so better to make sure to choose the right ones. All of the tools we have looked in this article are for different purposes, but each of them is crucial for maximizing productivity and collaborative workflow. With the right tools at your behest, you can make a smooth transition to a remote development team.

Simple & Easy Ways to Improve Employee Productivity

Though the coronavirus pandemic caused a sudden surge in the trend of working remotely, we can not deny the fact that remote working is associated with a lot of taboos. Did you know that before the pandemic struck and took millions of lives with it, most in-house workers weren’t even at their desks 60% of the time?  And, though we do not attempt to put shade on any working environment, remote working is here to stay. And if you are looking to hire a remote developer, there are some strategies you can embrace to boost their productivity. Regardless, like any other in-office worker, the productivity of a remote worker can be affected by a number of reasons.  So, if you are looking to navigate the complexities of managing a virtual team and meet ends at the right time, you are at the right place. Read on to discover the benefits of hiring remotely, factors affecting your virtual team’s productivity, and seven strategies to help you skyrocket their productivity. 

Why Should You Hire Remote Workers?

Believe it or not, companies do benefit from a remote working module, probably as much as the workers do. In addition to sticking to proper work and life balance, remote working does boost productivity, creativity, and flexibility. 

Can I hire remote developers from India? 

With most companies offering remote jobs, salary expectations have skyrocketed in the past two years. Employers can no longer use working remotely as an excuse to offer lower pay. However, if you want to cut down your cost, hiring remote developers or other people can help you stick to your budget while getting in touch with global talent. Because the cost of living and sustaining in India is generally lower than in the USA, you might be able to hire remote developers from India at a much lower rate.  Moving forth, here are the top benefits of hiring Indian remote workers: 

Save Money On Office Spaces

If you are an emerging tech company, you would either have to rent out an office space or take space in a co-working space. But, with remote working, you don’t need to do either. This means you can cut down your biggest expense: the rent. Moreover, rent is not the only significant expense you would have to deal with if you follow an in-office module. For starters, you must provide drinks like a clean water supply, coffee or tea. Then, there are also team outings and fun weekends. If you, however, plan to manage everything remotely, you can do everything virtually. So, no more providing snacks, drinks, and bathroom supplies or paying for the rent. Moreover, hiring an Indian remote worker will actually fit your budget, and you’ll be able to grab real talent, thus improving your services. 

Reduce Equipment Cost

If you go for a remote module through an offshore development center, you won’t be required to provide your team with equipment like a laptop or a PC. Remote working follows a BYOD culture, i.e., Bring Your Own Device. In short, you will be able to cut down equipment costs like purchasing or renting intelligent devices for an entire team. Moreover, you’ll also save on repairs, updates, and routine maintenance. 

Team Productivity Will Boost

If you are a creatively-driven company like a digital marketing company, you’ll know the benefit of how a comfortable space can boost creativity. Hiring remote Indian developers from an offshore development center gives your team flexibility and saves time on traveling to and back from the office. Moreover, the team will be able to choose a device of their choice, and having familiar devices can help you work better. With traveling time cut short and a sense of familiarity, the team will be able to give their best with no stress. This will lead to improved profits. 

Hire A Diversified Team

If you hire remote developers from India, you won’t be restricting your team to geographical limitations. This means you can hire actual talent and not just local residents. In fact, remote working has contributed to hiring the best professionals, especially from India. 

Challenges Faced In A Remote Working Module

Frankly speaking, remote working has its own sets of pros and cons. And while there are a number of noteworthy benefits, you can not deny some challenges companies face. For starters, hiring outside the office premises can allow sensitive information to enter the real world, causing a data breach. However, you can adopt some corporate settings to avoid it.  Furthermore, there would be no one to monitor employees. This is perhaps the most significant challenge and the only reason why most companies have denied this module. Lack of monitoring can cause the employees to slag, thus affecting productivity. Though remote working has helped several companies increase team productivity, some employees might take this for granted and find loopholes.  While data protection and device security can be protected with automotive software, here are vital factors affecting your remote team’s productivity. 

Reasons For Lower Team Productivity 

Increased Distractions

Working from the office means your team would be restricted to a professional environment where there will be minimal distractions. However, working from home can cause an increased number of distractions. Like, the family would be at home or working while lying on the bed.

Lower Monitoring

Monitoring is easy when working from the office. But, in a remote environment, no one would be there to measure productivity and keep stats on your targets. Employees may feel like spending more time with family or friends or doing work unrelated to the office. 

No Social Touch

From team meetings to cultural fests and days out, companies find a way to help employees socialize with other employees. This helps build a connection between fellow team members. However, when you hire remote developers, they might feel disengaged from their team. This might stop the employees from reaching out to their superiors to gain guidance or resolve a problem, thus affecting their productivity. 

Inability To Fix Technical Errors Fast

If you are a tech company, you must be relying on technology. And, device or network errors are pretty common when using technology. Your team would have to ensure the proper functioning of all digital devices. So, one a device shows a technical glitch, not all employees would be tech-savvy to solve those problems on their own. This will affect the productivity of the employees. 

Lack Of Proper Information

Several corporate businesses try their best to protect against data breaches. An in-office environment where all employees would report to the office would be able to access this information after clearing several security checks. But, when it is a remote setting, the company won’t provide all the information handy to all employees. This means, that the team would not have enough information on the projects they are working on and would not be able to understand the final objectives. 

7 Strategies To Improve Productivity Of Remote Workers 

If you have made up your mind to hire remote developers from India and get access to actual talent, the following strategies will help you preserve a healthy working environment for your virtual team and improve their productivity.  Though the remote setting is the new normal, several companies try to track their employees through tracking software, constant team meetings, and organizing no team events. Regardless, a survey on remote settings revealed that one-third of hiring managers noticed an increase in productivity due to working remotely. Moreover, 90% of workers reported higher productivity when working remotely.  However, if you feel like your productivity has decreased since you adopted a remote setting, here are the top seven strategies you can embrace to boost your team’s productivity. 

1. Streamlined Communication

It’s undeniable that effective communication is an excellent concept of brainstorming, good team connection and higher productivity. And, if it’s a remote setting you are following, effective communication is pretty important. However, there should be a balance. Too much informal communication can bring things downside, degrading productivity.  In short, to enhance proper communication, give space to your employees and allow them to depict their team working skills. Honestly speaking, sometimes a thumbs-up emoji or a smiley face can bring your employees closer. In fact, according to a study, proper usage of emojis helped 73% of people in faster idea sharing.  To streamline communication, here’s what you can do:

• Lower communication channels 

Instead of embracing multiple communication channels, ask your team to use a single communication channel like Skype for proper communication. 

• Work on your internal communication policy

To reconstruct your internal policy for proper communication, define elements like goals, channels, frequency and time when contact is required. Also, record everything and update all team members.

2. Work On Company’s Work Culture

To skyrocket your team’s productivity, committing to a company’s ethical work culture is essential. Everything comes down to how much your employees enjoy working for you. If a culture is too stressful and full of authoritarian figures, employees won’t be able to add that spark of creativity and will be restricted to something too basic.  So, to redesign your company’s culture, here’s what you can do: 

• Flexible working hours

Higher productivity comes from a proper work-life balance. Make sure to give your employees adequate flexibility so they can give themselves some time and work properly when they are at it. 

• Offer health incentives

We’re not just talking about health insurance. While it is pretty important, make sure to offer mental health assistance to your employees as well. 

• Promote core values held by the company

You can create several processes or events that promote company values to help with employee engagement and proper goal completion. 

• Allow Your Team To Take Control Of Their Time

Remote working can blur the thin line between work and life, especially if they have family or pets living with them. Moreover, the team might lose touch with reality, thus affecting their productivity.  To encourage team members that they are perhaps in control of their time, you must help them eliminate distractions or unproductive habits. To enhance your team’s productivity, you can do the following: 

• Share information on proper time management or organize webinars to offer time management tips and practices. 
• Ask your team members to note their peak productive hours and structure their daily tasks accordingly. 
• Communicate reasonable deadlines and team plans. 
• Ask your virtual team to make daily, weekly and monthly goals. 

3. Automated Processes 

The lack of productivity can also be attributed to prioritizing mundane, repetitive tasks over something significant. If your team has to complete those not-so-important tasks every day, they won’t have enough time to focus on actual work. So, instead of assigning your team members these highly repetitive tasks, look for ways to automate them fully.  Like, instead of manually entering business finances, purchase a subscription to software to automate all finances. If you divert your team to priorities, they will be able to give their 100% on every task and make sure everything is delivered within the predictive timeframe. 

4. Simplified Collaboration

Often, several companies working on a remote basis think that they need to adopt more tools to keep everyone connected. However, the opposite is actually quite true. To improve proper productivity, you must follow the less is more principle.  This means, that instead of using several tools to track your team’s productivity, let go of some useless tools and trust your team. This will streamline collaboration and simplify everything. In fact, you can go for a single software that supports effective communication, goal tracking, goal setting, deadlines, and vacation tracking. 

5. Reduce The Number Of Team Meetings 

It’s true that your team needs to have regular team meetings to stay in touch and discuss shared goals to track progress. However, according to research, too much Zoom time can be stressful. Several studies have found that spending too much time on Zoom or similar platforms has resulted in exhaustion, fatigue and reduced mobility.  Also, if your team would be spending most of their time on a video meet discussing what they need to do rather than actually doing it, productivity will hit rock bottom. 

6. More Play, More Work

Lastly, you need to make the working process more fun. Working in a company should not only be restricted to meeting deadlines and completing tasks. In short, you must organize exciting competitions and several informal activities to boost employee engagement.  You can also establish a buddy system to keep things on track and make everything fun. 

Top Benefits Companies Offers To Remote Developers in 2023

Did you know that remote working has skyrocketed by 140% since 2005? Regardless of whether being struck by the pandemic or not, remote work is here to stay. With lower office costs to better productivity, several companies have realized the benefits of remote working. Moreover, if productivity and quality work are your primary motives, you can reduce the cost of hiring remote developers if you outsource your need from third-world countries like India. Read our full article and get to know the top remote developers benefits offered by worldwide companies. If you hire remote developers from India, you can cut down your employee retention costs, and office costs and improve the offered services by diversifying your team with global talent. And while the companies benefit a lot from hiring a remote team, employees can enjoy a number of perks too.  Keeping this in mind, here are the top 31 benefits offered by companies to remote developers.

Free Mental Health Support

Though remote working comes with higher flexibility and lesser work pressure, you can not help but deny that staying at home with no actual contact can affect your mental health. And, while remote working surged during the COVID, so did mental health conditions like anxiety and depression.  Several companies understand this concern. So, when they hire remote developers, they make sure to provide free mental support. Employees working remotely can get in touch with experts hired by the company to improve their mental health. This creates a safe, secure, caring, and productive environment. 

Plant Subscriptions 

A better working environment means higher productivity. And one can enhance a working environment by adding greenery. As part of the welcoming kit, several companies who hire remote employees from an IT staff augmentation company give their employees potters or low-maintenance plants like cactus to add a modern yet productive touch to workstations. 

Office Setup At Home

One thing that is a bit alarming in a remote setting is employees working from their couches or beds. Companies that hire remote developers from India or other countries provide incentives so that remote employees can set up their office desks and work more productively.  The incentive employees receive can be used to purchase ergonomic furniture, standing desks, lighting, chairs etc. 

Workout Sessions

A healthy employee means a productive employee. Keeping this in mind, companies do offer free workout classes led by a certified instructor. This allows employees to get an exercise break during their busy schedule and take a break from all the stress.  Some companies might also provide fitness centers or gym passes. 

Read Also: Benefits of Hiring Dedicated Developers

Childcare Benefits 

Most people might also prefer remote working because they have children to take care of. Several tech giants do offer childcare health facilities to remote workers from an IT staff augmentation company.  According to the Eldercare Locator, child care can range from $2,000 to $5,000 every month. And, getting incentives on this can be a significant perk for some of the employees. 

Meal Delivery 

While the company won’t actually order and send food to employees’ homes, they do offer incentives and discount coupons so that employees can skip skipping in between working hours and focus more on productivity.  While this might seem like an extra expense to most companies, cooking and eating can take up to 2-3 hours off the working hours. Ordering meals can help employees focus on their work rather than spending 2 hours in a kitchen. 

Modern Technology And Tools 

When companies hire remote developer, they cut down office costs like paying rent or providing essential utilities like coffee or evening snacks to the employees. Several companies can use this extra money to pay for technology. Companies provide laptops, high-speed internet connection or monitors to ensure that the work is not disrupted due to a technical failure. 

Read Also: Must Have Tools to Manage Remote Teams

Virtual Team Events 

Who said a virtual team could not have all the fun? To help employees connect on a personal level, companies that hire remote developers from India or other countries host virtual team activities or games to help employees connect.  Some companies might also host virtual events like word puzzles, bucket list item sharing, virtual coffee meets, random chit-chats meet, recipe or craft challenges etc. 

Online Courses

Believe it or not, companies want their remote employees to grow and find a new skill set. Focusing on new skills isn’t just a benefit for employees but also for the companies. The employee can use the new skills to work more productively and provide better quality every time.  Remote or not, companies offer several paid courses for free to help employees grow. 

Home Gym Equipment

Working from home means being restricted to the four walls and moving your body way less. That’s why organizations offer their employees gym equipment, supplies, or passes to help them maintain a healthy body. 

Surprise Day Offs 

Going through a tough week? We bet it’s pretty standard in the corporate world. Going through close deadlines and a hectic week can slow down your employees from providing the best. Surprise day offs offered by some organizations can allow employees to take a break from the stress and work better when they return to work. 

High-Connection Wifi Connectivity 

When companies hire remote developers, they offer reimbursements to help employees pay for high-speed internet connectivity. After all, wifi is quite essential, especially if you are a tech company and have a team of remote developers.  Providing stable internet connections helps employees to work their best and give 100% without the slow internet speed getting in the way. 

No Meeting Days

For many, remote working means a lot of Zoom meets where employees are required to discuss what needs to be done rather than actually doing it. Hosting a no-meeting day can be a win-win for companies and employees. In fact, one of the biggest concerns of remote developers is attending several meetings daily.  A no-meeting day can help employees focus on the actual better and focus on meeting the deadlines instead of anticipating them. 

Virtually-Hosted Happy Hours 

To reward project completion, many organizations host virtual happy hours where employees can celebrate their success and get to know their team and mentors more personally.  This helps create a personal bridge between the workforce, allowing them to collaborate more effectively and allowing proper communication to flow in the organization. 

Pet Insurance 

Apart from the basic health insurance and retirement saving plans, remote workers outsourced from an IT staff augmentation company also get pet insurance as a voluntary benefit that helps them cover the medical bills of their beloved furry friends. 

Meal Cards 

As part of their appreciation policy, employees working in a remote setting are also gifted with several food vouchers or meal cards to encourage the team to perform their best. 

4 Days A Week

Most companies are pretty stuck on improving the team’s productivity. And, rather than sticking to the traditional methods of scolding and humiliating, companies understand the importance of providing flexibility to the team.  Though it might not always be a four-day week, most companies offer a four-day week once every month or a half-day Friday to check the level of productivity. 

Goodies To New Employees

Once a company hires remote developers from India or other countries, the focus is on building a remote team culture. Upon hiring, companies do send several goodies labeled with the company’s logo to build engagement and provide appreciation.  The welcome kit may include water bottles, socks, mugs, T-shirts, sneakers, and tech accessories like earphones, notebooks or stickers. 

Recognition Programs 

Recognizing and appreciating employees, peers, juniors, or managers helps the workforce to show more dedication to their responsibilities and work their best during working hours. Companies working on a remote basis host peer-to-peer recognition programs like celebrating birthdays, anniversaries, or success to motivate employees into doing better. 

Free Access To Co-Working Spaces

If a remote developer isn’t comfortable working from home due to a lack of space or shared space, they can ask companies to provide them a stipend so they can work in a co-working space.  Note that allowing your employees to work from a co-working space would be a better option than requiring your employees to commute to the office because this will offer them flexibility and will also help you decrease the monthly rent expense. 

Vacation Stipends 

It’s pretty understandable that employees deserve vacations. Vacations help them take a break from daily life, spend some time with their friends or family and recharge during their days off.  While some companies might not actually provide stipends to go on a vacation, most do offer longer leaves so that remote workers can get out of their four walls and connect with people. 

Annual Gathering Or Meetups 

This can go both ways. Companies can either ask the employees to physically attend the event or host a virtual meetup. If they have several employees working from different companies like India, Japan or the UK, they usually host a virtual meetup annually, so that employees can connect with their peers, juniors, seniors and managers. 

Flexibility In Working Hours 

While some companies follow a strict 9-5 policy for their remote employees, most companies allow their employees to freely choose their working hours. This flexibility enables the employees to work according to their convenience, thus allowing them to contribute better.

Investment Programs  

To help their remote team secure their future, most companies encourage their team to invest in certain shares. These shares are usually available at a lower rate than the market rate to encourage participation. 

Health Perks 

Did you know that 83% of the employees think having health insurance helps them decide whether they want to stay in the company or not?  Almost every company offers health insurance to its employees, regardless of whether a virtual or a physical team. 

Birthday/Work Anniversary Vouchers 

Companies have a particular way of making their employees feel special. From Zara to Amazon, companies give special shopping vouchers to celebrate their employees’ one-year anniversary or birthdays. 

Quit Smoking Programs 

Another thing that is pretty common in the corporate world is being a smoker. But, to help employees quit it, companies host many programs and campaigns to educate their remote workers. 

Performance Bonuses 

From monetary to non-monetary incentives, companies understand the importance of appreciation for boosting team productivity.  As a result, organizations offer several incentives like bonuses, trophies, trips, days off etc., as part of their successful goal achievement program.  

Onboarding Programs 

Companies are pretty keen on breaking the ice when they hire remote developers or other team members. They host a fun and interactive onboarding process that allows the new team member to connect with other employees, understand the company’s goals and values and make them feel more comfortable.  This can be done through online meets.

Premium Subscriptions

From Spotify to the Mindfulness app, companies also offer a premium subscription to their employees to stray away from the jarring ads and listen to their favorite tunes while working on their projects.

Pet Adoption Programs

We all know that caring for a pet is a full-time job, something that is not possible for in-office employees. Working remotely allows the employees to adopt or buy their new furry best friend and care for them while working from home.

How to Make a Smooth Transition to Remote Development Team

From Facebook to Amazon and Twitter to Google, the rise in the number of COVID-19 cases has prompted companies all over the world to ask employees to work from home and switch to remote development.

And, it is true that soon working with the remote development team would become a normal scenario after the recent announcement by the World Health Organization that coronavirus has reached Pandemic status.

Major countries like the USA and the UK are affected greatly by the spread of the virus with cases rising to 1.5 million and 2.5 lakhs respectively. It is hard to determine when these countries will return to their normal working with people leaving their homes and working from their workplaces. In such a situation, transitioning to the remote development team in countries like India has become a viable option.

In such a scenario, making a smooth transition to a remote development company in India will keep you backed with top talent and enable you to meet the client deadlines even in a situation where your developers are on sick leave. India has successfully controlled the rising Coronavirus cases to a great extent, hence the companies are constantly working remotely.

Here is what to keep in mind for a successful transition to a remote development team.

1. Define Remote Work Policies:

Despite having all the necessary resources to hire remote employees, the majority of managers fail to get the desired results. The main reason behind this is they don’t have all the necessary procedures in place. Before making a transition to a remote development team, it is important to outline expectations and discuss them with everyone on the team.

These policies depend on the team size, however, they will include:

• Availability: This means defining the business hour and deciding on the schedule at which you want your team to be available online.
• Data Management: Which tools will be used for storing and sharing the data securely?
• Tools: Let them know the tools that you want to use for communication and tracking their tasks.
• Productivity: How the team will measure the progress on projects and monitor results.

Embrace the tools: With the technology at your behest, managing a remote development team is not a challenging job anymore. With the right tools in place, team collaboration and communication becomes a piece of cake. So, before making a switch to remote development, arm your company with the right set of tools.

2. Communication:

Communication becomes an important aspect while working with the remote development team. Communication should be painless to understand the queries and needs of your team. Email is not a convenient option to understand the project status and challenges the team is facing, hence it is better to opt for tools like Slack and Skype. These tools come with video call options and also let you organize conversations by channel, project or topic.

3. Project Management:

Project management is a key task for organizations working remotely. Setting up a cloud-based management tool is the best option that lets everyone access the file and information whenever required. These tools also let you organize projects between different departments. Trello and Basecamp are commonly used tools for project management. For document sharing, Google Drive and DropBox are the common options.

4. Productivity:

How to know if your remote developers are working? This is one of the major concerns when hiring a remote development team. Most companies try to access their remote development team based on the number of tasks completed, rather than the number of hours they work each day. However, it is possible to keep everyone on task. Time-tracking tools such as Timedoctor, Tick, and Timesheets are the best option is such a case. You can monitor projects and simply monitor how long they are taking to complete particular tasks.

5. Security:

For data security reasons, it is important to have an information security policy in place before transitioning to remote work. You can ask your remote team to create passwords using LastPass and update them on a frequent basis. Sensitive information should be stored in a secure platform like Box and you can connect using VyperVPN while connecting to public networks.

Here is a list of tools that help you manage the remote development team without any inconvenience.

6. Maintain Company Culture

Positive company culture is important for employee engagement. According to Gallup’s State of the American Workplace report, company culture is among the top five reasons why employees switch to other companies.

Many companies find it difficult to maintain the company culture while going remote. However, managers can make efforts to create a culture that distinguishes your company from other offshore development centers. For example, you can consider traveling and meeting your offshore development team once in six months or a year.

In addition to team retreats, there are also other ways you can maintain a company culture digitally. For instance, regular video conferencing, rewards in the form of gift cards, and casual group discussions can make your team feel more connected.

7. Make Use of Overlapping Hours

Differences in time zones are one of the biggest challenges while working with offshore development teams. Using overlapping hours can help in mitigating this challenge. Overlapping hours are those hours of the day during which both the in-house team and remote developers are working. For example, if you have outsourced your project to India, then the shift ending time in India might overlap with the start of the shift in the USA.

8. Make Use of Agile Technology

Software development is a process that requires a high level of iteration and interaction, adopting an agile methodology for both in-house and offshore developers results in boosting efficiency significantly.

Agile methodology has become one of the most popular management strategies. For more than the last 10 years, the adoption rate of this methodology is growing continuously. 97% of respondents’ organizations practice agile development and 52% of respondents stated that more 80% than of the team are using agile practices.

The agile methodology involves breaking the project into smaller phases known as sprints. The length of the short iteration or sprint may vary. For example, a sprint may complete in one week or could take as long as two months.

9. Treat Remote Team as Partner

When you consider a remote team as your team, it is natural that the team will work harder for you. They will willingly try to have more overlapping hours with you and might even change the schedule to match yours.

Acknowledge the hard work your remote development team members put into accomplishing your project. Spend some time in building a rapport with them. This will solidify your relationship with the team and will create a happy working environment.

Benefits of Transitioning to a Remote Development Team

• Access to Global Talent: By embracing remote development, you open the doors to a vast pool of talent from around the world. This enables you to tap into specialized skills that may not be readily available locally.
• Cost Savings: Remote teams often result in significant cost savings. You can reduce expenses related to office space, utilities, and other overhead costs.
• Enhanced Productivity: Many professionals thrive in remote environments, leading to increased productivity. Without the distractions of a traditional office, team members can focus better on their tasks.
• Flexibility: Remote work offers flexibility in terms of work hours and location. This can lead to improved work-life balance and higher job satisfaction among team members.

Overcoming Common Challenges

• Time Zone Differences

Dealing with different time zones requires careful planning. Use scheduling tools to find overlapping work hours and establish core communication times. Encourage flexibility among team members when necessary.

• Maintaining Team Cohesion

To prevent feelings of isolation, create opportunities for social interactions. Set up virtual coffee breaks or casual chats to replicate the office water cooler conversations.

• Tracking and Accountability

Project tracking can be challenging in remote setups. Implement a transparent system for task tracking and reporting. Regular progress updates and status reports help keep everyone informed.

Working with a remote development team has become the need of an hour. Amidst corona, having a team operating for you from one of the least affected nations like India will back your productivity. All you need not do is adopt things as mentioned above to make sure that your remote development is aligned with your project development requirement.

How To Hire Remote Developers from India? 

Ready to cut your costs to a significant level? Hiring employees from third-world countries like India can help you with that. Hiring Indian remote workers allows you to improve your productivity while paying a lot less in salaries or incentives. Plus, you can also diversify your team and connect with global talent rather than being restricted to local talent. If you want to hire remote developers from India, connect with us today. We are an IT staff augmentation company that helps you connect with the best global talent who take their tasks seriously and provide 100% motivation to help you reach your company goals.  Get in touch with the team of GraffersID and start hiring the right people today.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q1: How do I ensure my remote team remains productive?

A1: Productivity hinges on clear communication, goal setting, and the right tools. Regular check-ins and well-defined tasks contribute to a focused and efficient remote team.

Q2: What if a team member faces technical issues while working remotely?

A2: Technical issues are common. Ensure your team has access to IT support and resources to troubleshoot problems promptly.

Q3: How can I build trust among a remote team?

A3: Trust is built through consistent communication, transparency, and delivering on commitments. Encourage open discussions and celebrate achievements together.