Remote teams: advantages and how to overcome the challenges (+ infographic!)

Published in

Inside Steer

4 min readMay 31, 2017

Remote work has its advantages — flexibility, low or no overhead costs, and a greater pipeline of applicants from which to hire. And it has its disadvantages — less interaction, managers worried about how to tell if their employees are staying on task, communication challenges and other type of company culture. How can companies maximize the advantages and minimize the disadvantages?

Why remote work is good for you, your team and your business

It lowers stress and boosts morale

When you give your employees the ability to customize their schedule so that they can better balance their professional life and their personal life, an interesting thing happens: they become grateful. In turn, their gratitude manifests itself in the form of loyalty towards the company. A loyal staff equals great productivity and decreased turnover, which, as any employer knows, is a great cost savings.

Increases productivity and efficiency

If you let an employee work from home, he’s sure to slack all day and miss his deadlines, right? Wrong. Companies and at-home employees alike say remote work is a boon to productivity. Distractions like water cooler gossip, impromptu meetings, and loud colleagues are a non-issue.

They won’t have to commute

You’d be hard-pressed to find an employee who actually enjoys his daily trek into an office. Without having to start their workday with a lengthy commute, crushed into a train car, smashed on a bus, or being jostled on a busy city sidewalk, telecommuters can start their workday earlier and dedicate more time to the job.

It is much cheaper

Sure, you’d like to have your entire staff centrally located in one office, where you can watch them work, collaborate together, and have face-to-face time with them whenever you want it. But all of that comes at price, in the form of super expensive office space costs, office supplies, and equipment. Having a virtual staff virtually reduces all of those expenses to zero!

Access to awesome talent

Because your employees can work from anywhere, you can look for the best talent anywhere. Instead of settling for the best developer you can find where you are, you can find an even better developer wherever. Working remotely means you are never starved for qualified candidates so you can make the best hiring decisions for the business.

Challenges when working remotely, and how to overcome them

Working too much

At the end of the day, a typical office worker checks out at 6PM, drives home to his or her family and spends the evening doing some leisure activity. But if you work from home, this is not the reality. You might need to trick yourself to take breaks and set clear start and end times. Otherwise, you risk burnout.

A few things that can help:

Set appointments on your calendar for the end of the day to get yourself out of your home office.
Set up reminders to take breaks. One member of our team has a recurring daily to-do list item to take a walk.
Be clear with your team on when you’re leaving–for example, by making a quick announcement in Slack–and then actually shut down your computer.

Prioritizing work

Remote workers need to be self-motivated experts at time management, because we don’t have others constantly overlooking our work or managing our time for us.

Few tips on how to prioritize your work while working remotely:

Limit the number of tasks you plan to do each day. Use the Eisenhower matrix to avoid unnecessary time-wasting tasks and know which tasks to do next. Or plan to do just 1 big thing, 3 medium things, and 5 small things per day.
Manage your energy, not your time. Your energy waxes and wanes during the day, so tackle tasks according to how much of your bandwidth they’ll take and how much you’ll be able to focus at different times during the day.

Loneliness and Lack of Human Interaction

People who work in shared offices experience impromptu “watercooler” moments of interaction and maybe even share meals together or after-work drinks. Remote workers? We often work asynchronously with our teammates and perhaps have only our houseplants to talk to.

How to overcome loneliness while working?

Include social breaks in your schedule, if you can, by working a few hours then spending an hour or two doing something social outside of your home, such as lunch with friends.
Try working at co-working spaces or coffee shops so you’ll at least feel like you’re still a part of society.
Be more intentional about joining local groups or organizations. Find a Meetup, or attend networking conferences.