Sustaining Collaboration in Distributed Remote Software Communities

 

 

Remote work probably is not for everyone! But still, many people wish to work in a 100% remote environment. While the other ones lose half of their productivity while working remotely. Many feel demotivated in remote settings on the other hand, some feel a lack of communication with the team when working remotely. Perhaps there is a large number of opinions. Everybody has their own set of priorities and based on those priorities, they decide whether a remote team collaboration is appropriate for them or not. But of course, while creating a remote work environment, an organization also faces a lot of challenges. Enhancing “Open Communication” is at the top of the list. It's interesting to note that 98% of workers want to do some of their work remotely.

 

 

Low is the number of companies that break the ice and reduce the communication barriers to create a flawless remote setting where people feel free to communicate with others. But those who succeed in doing so get magnificent results even in the long run. 

Increase in remote team collaboration

 

It's a well-known fact that companies are moving towards remote practices, at a dramatic pace! This remote teamwork communication creates a remote collaboration that sometimes could be hard to manage for many people. Therefore, a company's ability to manage various communities and emerge as one culture helps much in developing seamless communication. 

 

Plenty of companies are shifting completely to remote setups, and this could be a big challenge. Because as diversified the teams get, it becomes an even bigger challenge to manage communication among the groups. However, creating a sense of comfort among the remote workers helps the company overall at a much larger scale. This helps boost their morale and lets them express freely what their thoughts are.

 

But the question here is, how do we put up such a remote work communication system where everyone has the freedom of words? Let's find out together. 

When the globe became a virtual playground 

 

The world now looks more like a remote playground. Here people are virtually showing expertise in their respective domains. This remote playground overcomes geographical boundaries and enables people to showcase their talent, on a Global level. Teams can collaborate seamlessly across distances and communicate in remote teams. This enhances innovation, skill exchange, and open communication at work. As the world embraces this virtual pattern, these remote work communication challenges become a thriving hub for connectivity and knowledge-sharing. As a result, this collective growth makes people connect well and communicate freely. Therefore, having seamless communication in this scenario becomes of vital importance. Lack of communication in remote work and people becoming hesitant to speak up can negatively affect the whole remote community. 

 

How to develop a culture of open communication in teamwork?

Remote team collaboration strategies:

 

 

 

The promotion of a healthy work-life balance is pretty important for geographically apart teams. To achieve this goal, it is necessary to mix up distributed communities with a strong culture of collaboration, teamwork, and mutual support. Hiring people from various regions and making them work as a whole is quite a task. Definitely, it requires a lot of effort to bring everyone together on the same page. People have their opinions, their thoughts, and different problem-solving skills. They think according to their decentralized mindset and perhaps it gets harder to work as a team under poor management. But not to mention, geographically diverse teams can sometimes be hard to manage.

 

Making a remote work environment develop as ONE!

 

This can be done by creating an open communication environment! Building a remote culture means making people feel open to expressing their views. Let them share their best ideas. Knowing their thoughts, you’d be able to enhance trust in remote teams. People who come from different backgrounds often have different communication barriers. It is the duty of the management to make everyone feel at home, no matter where in the world they are residing. Company culture is developed when everyone is on the same page and there is no more hindering of communication! 

 

How to know your team has a poor communication level

 

Some examples

• Why does this team member take so long to respond?
• How do I know what tasks you have worked on today?
• This person on my team has missed several virtual meetings for remote teams, are they still working?
• Why don’t all my team members keep me in the loop with all their work?
• We have already worked on this task, how do I know the remote team's productivity?
• How can I trust someone who lives on another continent, in another timezone?

These examples are just a few. In real, there are infinite excuses that you’ll see when there’s a lack of communication. But still, these examples pretty much portray how less communication can create bad results. These examples are just the tip of the iceberg.

 

Why does this happen?

 

The reason for all this is quite simple “Lack of communication”. When employees see distorted communication, they begin to take their work for granted. They miss meetings, reply late and always stay out of the calendar. But there’s another side of the picture as well. People feel unhappy and less important because they're not sure what's going on. It also leads to fights between team members, and work remains incomplete. Basically, everything goes wrong when folks don't talk or understand each other.

 

Nonetheless, these instances effectively highlight the frequent negative outcomes. These outcomes directly result from insufficient communication.

 

Always look for ways to bring the team closer!

 

It is the duty of management To Be The Glue That Holds Everything Together.

Feeling a sense of being alone is probably the biggest drawback of working from home. People feel demotivated due to a lack of communication. This feeling often leads to disengagement which eventually leads to bad results. However, to avoid these sorts of mishaps, it is important to work in a way that brings team members together. Create a sense of belonging among them, even if they’re working poles apart.

1-Start with building trust among teams

 

It all starts with a bit of trust! When you trust your partner, you’re already halfway through your success. But here, we are not talking about trusting your partner but about a larger group of people. So, start with building the trust of people on a team level. Make people comfortable around the virtual presence of other people. 

 

The management must be efficient enough to create a bond of trust among the employees. They must be able to give employees a sense of ease that is being taken care of. This fosters trust and lets them communicate more freely.

 

2-Encourage open lines of communication

 

It is always a good idea to boost open communication. Only those companies thrive and allow their employees to speak freely. As your employees feel hesitant to speak up, they destroy the overall reputation of a company. They get demotivated and this lack of confidence hinders their productivity. Lack of communication also affects the personal as well as professional growth of any employee.

 

3-Maintain regular virtual meetings

 

Collaborating with the team in virtual meetings regularly is a perfect idea to bring the team closer. It fosters good communication and creates a sense of belonging among them. In these meetings, employees will unite as a team and will share the same purpose. It is also possible to add various activities to these meetings to enhance communication even more. 

 

4-Let your team make connections with each other

 

In a remote setting, it is quite important to let them speak out their hearts. So why stop people connecting from with each other?  If they don't do so, the silence and the feeling of their irrelevance will engulf their jobs. As they connect with their colleagues, they feel free to share ideas. One idea leads to another one and of course, Two heads are always better than one.

 

Not promoting open communication in a remote setting will surely lead to bad results. Employees will lack productivity and will never take their jobs seriously. Then they will neither be beneficial to a company nor be productive in their lives. Create a kind of company culture that helps them share their views with others. After all, a chain is only as strong as its weakest link. 

 

5-Powerful decentralized mindset

 

The decentralized model works best when all employees work together, independently. Everyone has full access to speak up, communicate freely, and have their own set of opinions. A workplace where people feel safe and secure, even when they are working from their homes. No matter where in the world they are online, they must have mental peace that the people they are working with care for them. This way, all the employees would be able to communicate freely without any hiccups. 

 

In essence

 

In the end, it is important to consider communication’s value, especially now that people can work from home. Communication helps with various remote work challenges and benefits the company’s culture. People who are far away from each other get to work as a whole. Also, communication stresses the need for strategic steps, to make the work progress more efficient. To help team members communicate openly and feel like they belong, there must be an open communication mode. 

 

By having a strong remote team collaboration, companies can build a culture of collaboration. People can get support that isn't limited by any location. This leads to more productivity and success in the remote work world as a whole. In the end, the most important thing to remember is that good communication is the key to overcoming multiple problems. 

Therefore, open communication builds a successful remote community.