The rise in digital technology has made the world connected and mobile. Companies are embracing remote work culture as a cost-effective and viable option for their businesses giving rise to a population of digital nomads. It’s a challenging task to build and manage a group or team of digital nomads, especially when each one of the employees is sitting distance away from the organised work atmosphere of an organisation. However, the right strategies and tools can make the digital nomadic culture a rewarding one for businesses. Many businesses have saved substantial amount of resources by embracing digital nomads into their companies.
So who is a “digital nomad”? Let us first understand the term properly. Any person who works remotely while travelling can be called as a digital nomad. Digital nomads do work on-the-go. They rely on technology to stay connected with their team members, collaborate with them. The benefit of being a digital nomad is that one can work from anywhere worldwide. All that is required is a stable internet connection, and a computer.
How to build a remote team
Right people are assets for a company. Especially, if one really wants an organisation that have remote employees, hiring the right people is even more critical. Dedicated, self-motivated, reliable, and experienced individuals are somebody that can become the assets for an organisation emphasising on the digital nomad work culture. It’s important to ensure that your digital nomads team has the necessary skills and tools to communicate in a remote and virtual work space. Clear communication channels are great ways to engage your team of digital nomads. Your team should know when and where to use email, instant messaging, and establishing guidelines for response times. Frequent virtual meetings with the team members is necessary for keeping everyone engaged, and be on the same page.
How to manage a remote team
It’s rather difficult to manage a virtual team than an in-person team. However, the benefit of managing a remote team is its flexibility. You can also manage your team from the breakfast table and need not worry about being in your night pyjamas. But be careful with your computer camera. You don’t want to look less professional at least? Coming to the point, communication is key here. So it’s important to schedule regular check-ins with team members to discuss concerns, fails and progress, and give as well as take regular feedback. Trust is crucial when its remote work. Because, unlike in-person environment where productivity is easy to be monitored, its difficult to monitor the same for remote work. Hence, trust on team members or your digital nomad colleagues is crucial. Whereas in in-person culture the focus is on delivery of tasks, in remote work culture, it is all about results rather than micromanaging the process.
What are the right tools to be used
Right tools are key to the success of digital nomadic culture. One can streamline collaboration with a variety of tools cush as Trello and Asana which are used for tracking progress and assign tasks. Simultaneously, communication can be effectively managed with Microsoft Teams and Slack. These can be used to do video conferencing, messaging and file sharing. However, the most important thing to care for in remote work management is digital security aspects. Making sure that each team member uses a secured connection for every communication and data transfer is important.
Digital nomadism is the reality of the present times. Hence, if organisations want to flourish in this digital age, they have to consider the culture prevailing in the work environment today. Gone are the days when employees felt compelled to go to the pre-established work environment. Today’s employees want an environment free of boundation. Hence, organisations need to work on providing the work atmosphere that can increase productivity of the digital nomads. This can be done by building a proper team and using tools for managing them to communicate clearly and effectively.
Tags:
digital nomads