Find below the main tips for team management in home office and how our software can help you with this task.

1. Evaluation of support systems and integration of software tools

Most organizations only discover that their systems and tools are not well integrated when remote employees encounter bottlenecks when working off-site. A remote team presents different work patterns and system usage. It is remote workers who can discover poorly integrated systems and processes that hinder productivity. This can be in the form of accessibility problems due to VPN bandwidth, usability issues with applications that do not work well outside the firewall, or simply ineffective collaboration software tools.

Remote employees usually set up their home office system, including downloading the business applications they use, and find that these applications are slow to load, sometimes don't work, or require additional access permissions, which decreases productivity. Most of the time, remote employees will use more cloud applications that are not supported by the organization in an effort to simply get their work done.

There are tools that help identify where there are inefficient systems and processes. Monitoo can provide user data insights to help locate where employees are getting stuck and how to resolve bottlenecks in order to get work done. It can identify which business applications are actually being used and which can be eliminated to streamline operations.

2. Reformulate operational policies to include Home Office considerations

Many companies have informal Home Office policies, and standard communication applications are used without adjustments to suit remote workers. In Owl Labs' 2019 telecommuting statistics, the biggest challenges remote workers face during hybrid meetings are interruptions and conversations (67%) and IT issues during meetings (59%). A common complaint made by remote workers using Go-To-Meeting, WebEx, Zoom, etc. is the prevalence of "side" conversations in the room, making it difficult to hear, decipher, or interpret important information being shared.

Another area is a slow transition to digitizing paperwork and centralizing communications. This is a problem as new software and workflow implementations may be needed that may not have existed previously. The use of communication and project collaboration platforms like Slack, Jira, and GitHub can help modernize processes remotely and encourage employees to be more flexible in how they work with local and remote colleagues.

3. Track productivity to understand how work is being done

Home Office has increased the focus on the need to monitor production and ensure productivity among teams. It is increasingly important to get answers to "how do you work?" instead of "are you working?". Productivity tracking through regular team syncing, 1:1 check-in meetings, and so on, are used by companies to keep track of project progress and ensure that employees are focused on priorities.

In Flexjobs' annual survey, 65% of remote workers said they were more productive in a home office than in a traditional office. Although there are many other studies confirming this belief, analyzing employee productivity is complicated and tracking it has been a mystery. The definition of productivity varies by organization, industry, department, and even among individual roles. You may have doubts about how time is spent when employees are out of sight, as is the case with remote workers.

4. Avoid cyber security risks from open perimeter devices

With the growing wave of remote work, the security perimeter has expanded beyond what many organizations can effectively handle. An organization's internal network security is as important as protecting the external firewall from cyber attacks. Remote employees, contractors, freelancers, and third-party vendors have access to an organization's IP, customer data, and other confidential information as part of routine business conduct. Organizations implement policies and security protocols diligently to protect data, but complexity arises with the identification of internal threats and the mishandling of confidential data. According to a report by Shred-it, 47% of business leaders said human error caused a data breach in their organization. This increased the need to address these unique challenges head-on with more dynamic approaches.

One common challenge in detecting breaches is determining not only what happened and how it happened but what the intent was. Usually, during daily activities, employees share information and inadvertently share confidential information that is then transmitted through email tracking and messaging tools. The practice is quite common but unintentionally malicious.

5. Eliminate employee burnout due to work-life balance issues

Working remotely can easily translate into many working hours as remote employees often alternate more frequently between personal and work priorities throughout the day. In a PWC study on the future of work, over half of respondents fully agree that they seek work-life balance, but only 34% claim to have achieved it. It is common to hear employees who work from home talk about how they love the flexibility of working from home or anywhere, but they know they work more hours to stay focused and get everything done. Certain roles require collaboration with different teams, globally, across geographic time zones, requiring more working hours throughout the day. This can include being available for meetings and video conference calls at any time. This can be challenging to navigate as remote workers struggle to maintain their personal lives and achieve an ideal work/life balance.

It is common for remote workers to not disconnect and