How to support offshore employees in a remote work environment
Table of Contents
In addition to guest posting on the UpCity blog, Remote Team Solutions is featured as one of the Top Staffing Agencies in the United States. Check out their profile!
It is known that remote working has become the new norm, as companies around the world lean towards all sorts of remote solutions to sort out their staffing needs and further enhance business operations as a whole. With the arrival of sanitary restrictions and their social repercussions, some trends underwent an abrupt reversal, while others intensified notoriously, such is the case of software development, as one of the beneficial effects of the worldwide pandemic’s initial waves, allowing communication tools to be perfected.
Just like on-site employees, remote workers will have a few obvious requirements, and others not as evident. According to Pedro Barboglio, CEO of Remote Team Solutions and Forbes Councils member: to be successful, “Employees must fully adopt the company’s culture and develop solid loyalty and a sense of belonging to the company. Employees must be recognized, empowered, and held accountably; the company should invest heavily in their training and continuous improvement”. In this article, we will discuss the main strategies to attract and maintain a top-performing remote workforce.
Dedicated Workspace
This is much more than a comfortable working environment. In-house departments have access to the company’s equipment, while remote workers, depending on the type of contract, will either use their equipment, or equipment bought by their employers through a local supplier, since sending all of the equipment offshore might not be the most practical solution. Ideally, the latter is what we are aiming for in this article: Providing your offshore employees with the right equipment will guarantee they have the necessary collaboration tools to do their job while also feeling much more involved.
Even while not every employee will be able to have the ideal setup, there are a few factors to consider when trying to make the place as efficient as possible. These factors include privacy, noise, Wi-Fi connection speed, natural light, and a temperature-controlled environment. With Home Office workers, the kitchen table might work occasionally, but not for the long term on full-time workers as it might turn out to be uncomfortable, and probably hinder performance overall.
Making sure staff members have a designated workspace can significantly impact how they feel about WFH (working from home). Therefore, if you have workers that telecommute, be sure to provide them with a workspace where they can concentrate on their tasks without getting sidetracked. In addition to the obvious benefits a backup power line and high-speed internet connection might bring, a dedicated workspace will be a determining factor for the other aspects mentioned in this article such as communication, social interaction, and also:
Equipment (Hardware/Software)
It’s critical to assess what equipment, software, and technology remote workers require to complete their work from home as they lack direct access to in-house IT support.
The basis for success for your offshore team includes providing the required hardware (such as webcams, monitors, etc.) as well as reliable internet connectivity for important employee groups. A significant component of this is having access to video conferencing capabilities.
Organizations can gain an advantage by continuously monitoring the technology that is available in the market to make work better for remote employees.
Sending desks, office furniture, and computers to offshore teams is not practical, and it is certainly expensive. Luckily, there are newer business models that cover every aspect of employee management, recruiting, and human resource functions to support businesses in establishing, scaling, and running their remote teams, therefore ideal for offshore workers and managing the whole dedicated workspace aspect by providing access to state-of-the-art facilities, similar to a coworking space, but dedicated specifically for the staff outsourcing company’s clients. Therefore, the whole equipment and workspace can be covered under a single all-inclusive package.
Communication
By using technology wisely and productive communication strategies, you can keep your distant staff in touch.
Use apps like Zoom, Asana, GoToMeeting, and Slack, for instance, to simplify team member communication and project management so that everyone is on the same page. It is essential to encourage your staff to use the cloud for file sharing to improve communication and teamwork too.
Don’t forget to use video conferencing as well. Even though email and online chats are excellent ways to stay in touch, face-to-face interaction can make your virtual team feel more at home in the office setting.
Regularly incorporate video calls with screen sharing and staff meetings. This can influence how your internal staff members regard team management while making remote workers feel like they are a part of the team.
Your teams and organization are bound together by communication, so frequency and timelines will be a priority. Never underestimate the value of consistent communication at all levels, even considering social media while of course making sure to draw the line between personal and work matters, so always respect their privacy.
It is rudimentary at best to have senior leaders email important announcements. To add a personal touch, think about using video conferencing, recorded interviews, or inviting executives to departmental or team-level meetings.
As a general rule, the more intimate and frequent the messaging around a message should be, the more emotionally charged the work environment is likely to be, thus resulting in a much more committed offshore staff.
Hear From Industry Experts
Read the latest tips, research, best practices, and insights from our community of expert B2B service providers.
Talent Development
Talent development benefits everyone. However, a lot of businesses could do better at integrating professional development into their culture of remote labor: According to a survey by The Harris Group, 70% of US employees are more likely to accept a job offer from a new company that invests in training and development.
Due to the increase in remote work, it is crucial that employers also engage in the development of their workforce. Professional development for remote workers is not simply a great idea as an “additional benefit”; it is now essential for employee performance and engagement.
Opportunities for professional growth are actually among the main factors that influence engagement and make workers feel more:
Empowered
Willing to assume additional responsibilities
Ready to perform their duties
In other words, both you and your employees benefit from employee development. It enables you to draw in, develop, and hold onto top performers so that you can maximize the potential of your workforce, and by working remotely there are even more options, either if they are trained by your company or through a staff offshoring service provider.
Benefits
We cannot overstate the significance of employee benefits. Employees who receive a competitive benefits package may feel rewarded and valued for their efforts. In addition, benefits support a worker’s family, health, and financial future, which can aid in luring and keeping top talent. According to Remote Team Solution’s CEO, Pedro Barboglio, to make employees feel part of the business, as a leader we need to “treat them as a family, (…) creating a real sense of ownership”. Employees spend most of their time in their work; make sure everyone sees it as a big family, feels part of the business, and knows what is going on and where it is headed.”
Employee perks raise the value of working for a specific firm and can enhance the health and quality of life of you or your coworkers. Candidates may examine the advantages that each company provides when applying for employment and consider those in addition to compensation when determining where they want to work.
Startups might struggle to find affordable benefit packages for their employees; a good solution is looking for local restaurants, gyms, and other businesses that could, upon negotiating, accept a discount or membership promotion for your business’ workers without really having to spend anything since they will appreciate referencing their business to your employees.
Social Interaction
Despite the many advantages of remote work, employees reported that loneliness was the biggest downside. Life balance is a great deal for remote work: by encouraging team relationships through social hours, video chats, and virtual team-building exercises, you can keep your remote staff motivated.
Assign mentors to new hires so they have someone to turn to with inquiries and get them oriented throughout their first few months on the job, in addition to the regular onboarding process. To reinforce those ties, if at all possible, organize an in-person team or corporate meetings.
With remote employees, the typical water cooler chats that take place in the office and socialization in general, won’t happen by accident. Teams should deliberately create opportunities for social interaction and employee engagement.
Keeping time zones in mind, occasional one-on-ones or even five to 10-minute casual talks through video meetings before getting down to work are great methods to relieve some stress from the work environment and clear their minds a bit, even feel in a friendlier workspace.
Wrapping Up
These elements are part of the reason why companies are moving from a BPO (business process outsourcing) model, towards a staff offshoring or nearshoring model, in which the offshore employees feel as if they are part of the business.
So there you have it, a few strategies to keep in mind to support offshore employees in a remote work environment. Without really disrupting workflow, these elements can be considered to improve employees’ quality of life during working hours, thus potentially increasing productivity.
About the author
Mauricio A. Cipres
After a 10-year career in marketing and management, having experienced all sorts of colors and flavors in sales, Mauricio is now the business development manager for Remote Team Solutions, an offshore remote teams company that helps its clients grow by building remote teams, helping them get substantial savings on employee wage and benefit costs while eliminating the time and resource burden of active employee management and reducing the employee turnover rate. Their clients, mainly from the U.S. and Europe, operate in a wide range of industries with one thing in common: A global vision through offshore success.
Table of Contents
In addition to guest posting on the UpCity blog, Remote Team Solutions is featured as one of the Top Staffing Agencies in the United States. Check out their profile!
It is known that remote working has become the new norm, as companies around the world lean towards all sorts of remote solutions to sort out their staffing needs and further enhance business operations as a whole. With the arrival of sanitary restrictions and their social repercussions, some trends underwent an abrupt reversal, while others intensified notoriously, such is the case of software development, as one of the beneficial effects of the worldwide pandemic’s initial waves, allowing communication tools to be perfected.
Just like on-site employees, remote workers will have a few obvious requirements, and others not as evident. According to Pedro Barboglio, CEO of Remote Team Solutions and Forbes Councils member: to be successful, “Employees must fully adopt the company’s culture and develop solid loyalty and a sense of belonging to the company. Employees must be recognized, empowered, and held accountably; the company should invest heavily in their training and continuous improvement”. In this article, we will discuss the main strategies to attract and maintain a top-performing remote workforce.
Dedicated Workspace
This is much more than a comfortable working environment. In-house departments have access to the company’s equipment, while remote workers, depending on the type of contract, will either use their equipment, or equipment bought by their employers through a local supplier, since sending all of the equipment offshore might not be the most practical solution. Ideally, the latter is what we are aiming for in this article: Providing your offshore employees with the right equipment will guarantee they have the necessary collaboration tools to do their job while also feeling much more involved.
Even while not every employee will be able to have the ideal setup, there are a few factors to consider when trying to make the place as efficient as possible. These factors include privacy, noise, Wi-Fi connection speed, natural light, and a temperature-controlled environment. With Home Office workers, the kitchen table might work occasionally, but not for the long term on full-time workers as it might turn out to be uncomfortable, and probably hinder performance overall.
Making sure staff members have a designated workspace can significantly impact how they feel about WFH (working from home). Therefore, if you have workers that telecommute, be sure to provide them with a workspace where they can concentrate on their tasks without getting sidetracked. In addition to the obvious benefits a backup power line and high-speed internet connection might bring, a dedicated workspace will be a determining factor for the other aspects mentioned in this article such as communication, social interaction, and also:
Equipment (Hardware/Software)
It’s critical to assess what equipment, software, and technology remote workers require to complete their work from home as they lack direct access to in-house IT support.
The basis for success for your offshore team includes providing the required hardware (such as webcams, monitors, etc.) as well as reliable internet connectivity for important employee groups. A significant component of this is having access to video conferencing capabilities.
Organizations can gain an advantage by continuously monitoring the technology that is available in the market to make work better for remote employees.
Sending desks, office furniture, and computers to offshore teams is not practical, and it is certainly expensive. Luckily, there are newer business models that cover every aspect of employee management, recruiting, and human resource functions to support businesses in establishing, scaling, and running their remote teams, therefore ideal for offshore workers and managing the whole dedicated workspace aspect by providing access to state-of-the-art facilities, similar to a coworking space, but dedicated specifically for the staff outsourcing company’s clients. Therefore, the whole equipment and workspace can be covered under a single all-inclusive package.
Communication
By using technology wisely and productive communication strategies, you can keep your distant staff in touch.
Use apps like Zoom, Asana, GoToMeeting, and Slack, for instance, to simplify team member communication and project management so that everyone is on the same page. It is essential to encourage your staff to use the cloud for file sharing to improve communication and teamwork too.
Don’t forget to use video conferencing as well. Even though email and online chats are excellent ways to stay in touch, face-to-face interaction can make your virtual team feel more at home in the office setting.
Regularly incorporate video calls with screen sharing and staff meetings. This can influence how your internal staff members regard team management while making remote workers feel like they are a part of the team.
Your teams and organization are bound together by communication, so frequency and timelines will be a priority. Never underestimate the value of consistent communication at all levels, even considering social media while of course making sure to draw the line between personal and work matters, so always respect their privacy.
It is rudimentary at best to have senior leaders email important announcements. To add a personal touch, think about using video conferencing, recorded interviews, or inviting executives to departmental or team-level meetings.
As a general rule, the more intimate and frequent the messaging around a message should be, the more emotionally charged the work environment is likely to be, thus resulting in a much more committed offshore staff.
Hear From Industry Experts
Read the latest tips, research, best practices, and insights from our community of expert B2B service providers.
Talent Development
Talent development benefits everyone. However, a lot of businesses could do better at integrating professional development into their culture of remote labor: According to a survey by The Harris Group, 70% of US employees are more likely to accept a job offer from a new company that invests in training and development.
Due to the increase in remote work, it is crucial that employers also engage in the development of their workforce. Professional development for remote workers is not simply a great idea as an “additional benefit”; it is now essential for employee performance and engagement.
Opportunities for professional growth are actually among the main factors that influence engagement and make workers feel more:
Empowered
Willing to assume additional responsibilities
Ready to perform their duties
In other words, both you and your employees benefit from employee development. It enables you to draw in, develop, and hold onto top performers so that you can maximize the potential of your workforce, and by working remotely there are even more options, either if they are trained by your company or through a staff offshoring service provider.
Benefits
We cannot overstate the significance of employee benefits. Employees who receive a competitive benefits package may feel rewarded and valued for their efforts. In addition, benefits support a worker’s family, health, and financial future, which can aid in luring and keeping top talent. According to Remote Team Solution’s CEO, Pedro Barboglio, to make employees feel part of the business, as a leader we need to “treat them as a family, (…) creating a real sense of ownership”. Employees spend most of their time in their work; make sure everyone sees it as a big family, feels part of the business, and knows what is going on and where it is headed.”
Employee perks raise the value of working for a specific firm and can enhance the health and quality of life of you or your coworkers. Candidates may examine the advantages that each company provides when applying for employment and consider those in addition to compensation when determining where they want to work.
Startups might struggle to find affordable benefit packages for their employees; a good solution is looking for local restaurants, gyms, and other businesses that could, upon negotiating, accept a discount or membership promotion for your business’ workers without really having to spend anything since they will appreciate referencing their business to your employees.
Social Interaction
Despite the many advantages of remote work, employees reported that loneliness was the biggest downside. Life balance is a great deal for remote work: by encouraging team relationships through social hours, video chats, and virtual team-building exercises, you can keep your remote staff motivated.
Assign mentors to new hires so they have someone to turn to with inquiries and get them oriented throughout their first few months on the job, in addition to the regular onboarding process. To reinforce those ties, if at all possible, organize an in-person team or corporate meetings.
With remote employees, the typical water cooler chats that take place in the office and socialization in general, won’t happen by accident. Teams should deliberately create opportunities for social interaction and employee engagement.
Keeping time zones in mind, occasional one-on-ones or even five to 10-minute casual talks through video meetings before getting down to work are great methods to relieve some stress from the work environment and clear their minds a bit, even feel in a friendlier workspace.
Wrapping Up
These elements are part of the reason why companies are moving from a BPO (business process outsourcing) model, towards a staff offshoring or nearshoring model, in which the offshore employees feel as if they are part of the business.
So there you have it, a few strategies to keep in mind to support offshore employees in a remote work environment. Without really disrupting workflow, these elements can be considered to improve employees’ quality of life during working hours, thus potentially increasing productivity.
About the author
Mauricio A. Cipres
After a 10-year career in marketing and management, having experienced all sorts of colors and flavors in sales, Mauricio is now the business development manager for Remote Team Solutions, an offshore remote teams company that helps its clients grow by building remote teams, helping them get substantial savings on employee wage and benefit costs while eliminating the time and resource burden of active employee management and reducing the employee turnover rate. Their clients, mainly from the U.S. and Europe, operate in a wide range of industries with one thing in common: A global vision through offshore success.
