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<\/div>You must develop a strategy to recession-proof your business. Economies don't expand forever. As the economy takes a deeper dive, it will be much harder for you to respond and keep your business afloat timely. You can do things to weather the turmoil of a recession. Here's a good look at what your small business can do to respond appropriately in times of economic hardship.<\/p>\n
<\/div>Read More<\/i><\/a> Remote teams have gone from a wonderful employer\/employee perk to a day-to-day necessity.<\/p>\n In fact, over two-thirds of surveyed companies<\/a> are taking steps to enable their teams to work remotely, and 40% of job seekers<\/a> would accept a lower salary to be able to work remotely.<\/p>\n Companies struggling with remote teams or just introducing remote teams must be especially careful to build the proper foundation for remote work culture.<\/p>\n So, if you didn’t deliberately consider your business’s culture when you wrote your business plan<\/a> and started your company, you must do so now.<\/p>\n Creating a shared culture is part of the glue (along with a shared vision) that will hold your business together, motivate your employees, and guide their behavior in various locations.<\/p>\n A company's culture is its personality. This includes the work environment, expectations, values, goals, and communication style. Want to get the full story on building and preserving your corporate culture?<\/p>\n <\/div>Read More<\/i><\/a> Each company has its own unique culture that should be refined over time. Your company’s culture can strongly influence your company’s brand identity<\/a> and is an important component of creating a strong brand.<\/p>\n When supporting your team culture, consider the following:<\/p>\n Having a remote team doesn’t change the work that needs to be done.<\/p>\n However, it requires that you change how <\/em>the team will collaborate.<\/em><\/p>\n You’ll need appropriate tech tools, organizational tools, and proper time-tracking tools<\/a>, to give your remote team the necessary resources to succeed.<\/p>\n It’s unlikely that you will find a one-tool-fits-all technology solution. So, as a business owner with remote teams, you should expect to invest in various online business tools, such as\u00a0social intranets,<\/a> or consider real-time tools to keep communications smooth and efficient.<\/p>\n Determine your needs and research tech tools<\/a> that will integrate nicely and complement the systems and processes you already have in place.<\/p>\n Technology platforms and virtual collaboration software<\/a> are constantly evolving. So, it’s a good idea to audit your technology<\/a> tools at least once a year to ensure they’re still the best fit for you. For example, ensure that your backup software<\/a> works correctly and that you can restore backups for your employees in case of catastrophic data loss. Consider a cloud-based document management system for enhanced efficiency and accessibility.<\/p>\n Here are some of the most popular technology tools remote businesses use to help you get started…<\/p>\n Slack is a text-based instant chat tool<\/a> that can serve as your everyday conversation mode. You can chat directly with a single user, specified teams, or your whole company. The platform organizes conversations into channels where team members can join and leave as needed. These channels ensure the right people have the information they need without bombarding everyone. Slack also supports voice calls. Our team at crowdspring uses Slack, and we highly recommend it.<\/p>\n Zoom is a video conferencing tool designed for remote teams. You can set up your own Personal Meeting Room with a shareable personal link so your colleagues can always access your meetings easily. You can also simply start a stand-alone meeting and invite participants ahead of time or add them on the fly. Zoom offers free and reasonably-priced paid plans. Our team at crowdspring uses Zoom, and we highly recommend it.<\/p>\n Basecamps claims itself as your company\u2019s \u201ccentral source of truth.\u201d This web-based project management tool (with terrific mobile apps) is excellent for project management and<\/em> organized communication. It can be used on any operating system and offers online chat, message boards, file sharing, and task management in one convenient hub. We\u2019re huge fans of Basecamp (the product and the company) and have used it at crowdspring since 2006.<\/p>\n Trello is a powerful yet simple-to-use productivity organizer. This tool organizes \u201ccards\u201d into lists. These cards can be tasks, notes, projects, shared files, or anything else that helps your team work together. The cards can then be moved from list to list as they evolve through the project’s lifecycle. This gives you a quick, accurate, and ever-evolving picture of a project’s progress. For example, when hiring a remote development team<\/a> for projects that require collaboration across locations, tools like Trello can keep everyone on the same page. Our distributed team at crowdspring uses Trello, and we highly recommend it.<\/p>\n Asana is another online collaboration tool that enables team members to stay focused on daily tasks, goals, and projects to help the business grow. An easy-to-use dashboard interface makes task and workflow management easy. Integrations with several commonly used business apps, such as Slack, Salesforce, Microsoft Office, Gmail, and more, make it an even more powerful resource for managing productivity.<\/p>\n Monday is a virtual team-management tool. With Monday, managers can quickly add members, assign tasks, customize workflow, and track the progress of their work to completion. Monday also allows you to automate tasks and integrate with many other business apps to keep you connected to everything you care about – all in one place.<\/p>\n The Time Doctor is an online budgeting, timesheet\/payroll, work management platform<\/a>, and remote time tracker. This multi-faceted tool tracks productivity and records the data. The resulting analytics can be used to monitor overall productivity. This platform is most useful for businesses with larger remote teams who require advanced data aggregation, including time-tracking tools<\/a>, to assess performance.<\/p>\n Toggl is a time-tracking app that requires employees to activate tracking to track their tasks manually in real time. Designed to increase productivity, Toggl can help you compare profits against time spent on tasks. The drawback is that Toggl must be manually activated to track activity, or employees must manually enter time data, making Toggle just one more task that employees must manage.<\/p>\n When I Work is an employee scheduling app with time-tracking capabilities. The app is great for businesses with multiple employees and complex time coverage schedules, especially if you struggle to balance coverage and tracking. This app may be a good fit for your business if you face these challenges.<\/p>\n WebWork is a time-tracking and productivity-monitoring tool designed to make remote work efficient. As a time tracker, WebWork can help you and your team maintain efficient time management no matter where you work. Based on your team members’ device activity and tracked time, WebWork can determine their productivity level as productive, neutral, and non-productive. Moreover, the tracker also helps improve overall team time management by offering time tracking with screenshots, communication, and task management all in one place.<\/p>\n G Suite, Google’s answer to Microsoft Office, is a collection of cloud-based software solutions – including the file management tool Google Drive. In addition to providing reliable file storage, G Suite also includes Google Docs (word processing), Google Sheets (spreadsheets), Gmail (email), Google Calendar, and more. G Suite is file management and creation in one handy collection of integrated apps.<\/p>\n DropBox, a cloud file storage service, has long been popular for file storage and sharing. It’s especially helpful if your team works with larger file sizes or for remote teams who need access to files together in one place. Dropbox is an excellent choice for organizing files your team needs to access.<\/p>\n Box is a cloud-based file and content-sharing platform that emphasizes data security. Users can invite others to view, edit, share, and collaborate on documents and files. Box also features several app integrations to make it easy to save work from many sources in one convenient spot.<\/sup><\/p>\n One of the oldest arguments against remote work is, “How can I be sure they’re working?!?”<\/p>\n But, this concern (troubling in its assumption that all employees are lazy or liars) doesn’t hold water.<\/p>\n A\u00a0two-year\u00a0study<\/a>\u00a0by Stanford found that when calling center employees worked from home,\u00a0performance\u00a0<\/strong>increased<\/strong><\/em> by 13%<\/strong><\/span>.<\/strong><\/p>\n But that’s just the beginning.<\/p>\n The study further revealed that employee attrition decreased by 50 percent<\/em><\/strong> among those who worked remotely.<\/p>\n After all, once people eliminate a soul-crushing commute to the office, they become instantly happier.<\/p>\n The work-from-home team took less time off, shorter breaks, and fewer sick days than their in-office counterparts. In addition, the business benefitted from decreased rent for its new, smaller office space.<\/p>\n And the success of existing, fully remote businesses (like crowdspring) serves as further real-world proof that remote teams can be forces to be reckoned with.<\/p>\n The challenge isn’t so much keeping your remote employees working as keeping you in the loop about what they’re working on so that you can see the big picture and strategize how best to focus their efforts to grow your business.<\/p>\n Here’s how you can do this effectively:<\/p>\n Transparency is a two-way street.<\/p>\n To get the results you want from your employees, you must be clear about what those results should be ( and when<\/em> you expect to see them). Understanding employee monitoring<\/a> best practices can help establish these expectations effectively.<\/p>\n So, the first step in assigning any task is to set proper expectations.<\/p>\n Be clear about project requirements and benchmarks employees must meet individually and as a team.<\/p>\n Once you’ve established expectations for your remote team, you’ll be able to see if those expectations are being met (and troubleshoot issues if they arise).<\/p>\n Here are a few tips for setting clear expectations:<\/p>\n Micromanaging can hinder productivity, but you need to know what’s happening with projects to make informed plans.<\/p>\n The solution is to create a self-supporting management system that bakes accountability checks right in.<\/p>\n Schedule recurring meetings, use automated updates<\/a>, and rely on a project management platform to create a self-sustaining network of communication that keeps you informed about your employees’ accomplishments.<\/p>\n Here’s how to do it:<\/p>\n![](\"https:\/\/images.crowdspring.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/27125439\/logo-pink-blue.png\"\/){kind=logo}
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How can you build a strong company culture?<\/h3>
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2. The wrong tools can make collaboration difficult<\/h2>\n
Communication Tools<\/h3>\n
Slack<\/a><\/h4>\n
Zoom<\/a><\/h4>\n
Basecamp<\/a><\/h4>\n
Project Management Tools<\/h3>\n
Trello<\/a><\/h4>\n
Asana<\/a><\/h4>\n
Monday<\/a><\/h4>\n
Productivity Tracking Tools<\/h3>\n
The Time Doctor<\/a><\/h4>\n
Toggl<\/a><\/h4>\n
When I Work<\/a><\/h4>\n
WebWork Time Tracker<\/h4>\n
File Management Tools<\/h3>\n
G Suite<\/a><\/h4>\n
DropBox<\/a><\/h4>\n
Box<\/a><\/h4>\n
3. Lack of transparency puts a remote team at a massive disadvantage<\/h2>\n
Set proper expectations<\/h3>\n
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Automate accountability<\/h3>\n
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