5 Common Remote Work Challenges
Studies have also shown that remote work employees are more productive, happier and have a more balanced work-life balance. The rewards push a transformation of the workforce for workers and companies alike. A variety of studies have been conducted on remote work in recent years, listing the benefits for those concerned. Remote workers have been found to take fewer sick days off, to be pushed for longer, to stay in their jobs longer, and to prioritize wage increases for their privileges.
Remote work sounds like the business revolution we all need, but there’s something you can’t just turn to and hope for the best. As with all, there are downsides to remote work, and a variety of challenges to tackle as well. Fortunately, to overcome these problems, any company can use working strategies and tools and enjoy the full benefits that remote work needs to offer.
Collaboration
Collaborating from different locations is the most common challenge identified by remote teams in studies. How can a team of designers collaborate on the same project when, for example, they are spread around the nation or world? They will communicate with papers, objects, projects and each other without any real restrictions while team members are in the same office.
Remote teams, however, are incredibly small and even engaging with the same document presents difficulties.
Tracking tasks and productivity
We are now getting into some of the more difficult issues of handling remote teams. To accomplish big goals, you have to make sure that all the smaller tasks are done in a timely manner. It can be a challenging prospect to keep track of the progress several remote employees are making on a daily basis.
How can you keep track of individual task progress while keeping a keen eye on project-wide progress as well? Well, in a reactionary sense, the project management instruments we looked at earlier will help you do that. In other words, when team members have begun tasks and completed them, they will show you, but you only get this data after these experiences take place.
Working from different locations
The opportunity to recruit talent from around the world is one of the biggest freedoms remote working offers companies. The downside is, in various time zones, a lot of this talent can work, which can throw your team out of sync. Sections of the team may be snoozing in some situations, while other sections are trying to get stuff done on the other side of the planet.
Distractions Overcome
Another productivity killer that can turn remote work into a nightmare and compromise team progress is distractions. Distractions at home in Buffer ‘s 2019 State of Remote Working study were the fourth most popular problem reports, and I understand this issue very well.
Some would argue that working from home is not technically remote working, but I can guarantee that this issue is equally normal for me in both cases as someone who spent years working remotely around the world and now mostly works from home.
Motivated
Staying motivated is a common challenge identified by remote employees and I agree that this is largely unsupervised. There is less pressure to get things done without the involvement of managers and team members and you may also miss out on the community satisfaction of achieving goals as a team.
Conclusion
Remote work brings many possible advantages to the table, but once you reach a degree of efficiency and discipline that helps create a work-life balance, you may never get to a point where you will appreciate them. If your work starts eating into your personal life and vice versa, there’s not much point in working remotely.
