Although plenty of people who are owners of traditional offices still strongly believe that if there was any other way of running a business other than the traditional set-up, productivity would be affected. The reason behind this is that owners would not be able to monitor their employees and see if they are really working. However, the thing is, virtual offices are plenty nowadays. In fact, many traditional business owners have seen the advantages of virtual offices and have shifted to that. Those who have already tried out running their business via virtual offices are more than happy to claim that productivity was affected but in a good way. Yes, productivity has even gone up!
Of course, one of the most important aspects of running a virtual office is communication. This is very important and should not be forgotten. With that, here are some important things to keep in mind about communication in a virtual office. After all, this should help everybody on your team work smart.
Keep communication constant.
If communicating in a physical office is a must, then there is no doubt that is even more important in a virtual office now that everyone is working remotely. By doing this, everything is all clear especially when it comes to tasks and to goals that the company needs to reach or complete. By communicating with your team, you are able to get messages across and they know what is expected of them. They are also able to reach out to you and voice out any concerns that they may have.
What is important is that you try and find a good way to communicate with your team. It does not have to be a daily meeting over Skype or something like that. You can actually make use of chat – reaching out to each person and talk to them on an individual level. You can also make use of emails so that it is more formal and there would be a record of the messages being sent to and fro. Emails are also good to use for sending out messages to the whole team. But make sure that you inform the whole team that they should be checking their work emails regularly so as not to miss out on anything important.
Make use of tools.
Tools have not been created and distributed just because. They have been created with a certain thought in mind – to be able to make things easier for virtual offices. There are tools that should allow you to make easier calls and improved meetings. There are ones made for audio calls and there are also ones for video calls so you get to see everyone on the team during a meeting. There is always Skype that has been proven to be quite reliable for such. Google Hangout has also been a very good tool for communicating online.
What is also important is you set the rules when it comes to communicate. Let your employees know what you expect from them – like making sure that they are online on these tools so they can get your messages as soon as they come in.
published under Digital Marketing Guide
