4 simple tips for project managers to boost the productivity of their remote team

Leave a Comment / Management, Productivity, Project management, Time management / By Tim Lauenroth

By now, some project teams have become largely accustomed to remote working and have adapted their processes accordingly. However, there is still a lot of room for improvement and development that can be exploited in the successful management of projects. Especially when it comes to productivity, new thinking is needed.

With these 4 quick tips, you as a project manager can improve the productivity of your remote team and execute projects more effectively.

1. How is the cohesion within the team?

If communication between employees suffers, so does team cohesion. If you work alone at home, you can quickly get the feeling of working completely alone and autonomously. If there is no remote teamwork, a feeling of dissatisfaction can quickly spread.

As a project manager, you should therefore pay more attention to the cohesion within the team. Because if the cohesion component is missing, there is also a lack of trust in the team, and communication decreases.

This in turn hurts the productivity of the projects, because the work is no longer as much fun and the motivation of the employees increasingly dwindles.

For you as a PM, this means being the initiator in terms of communication and actively approaching the exchange with your employees, and promoting not only the professional but also the private exchange.

Meetings in which you exchange ideas over the weekend or in everyday life in addition to work can be very conducive to cohesion, especially in remote work.

2. Is our communication effective?

“Creativity comes from spontaneous meetings, from random discussions. You run into someone, you ask what they’re doing, you say ‘wow’ and soon you’re cooking up all sorts of ideas” — Steve Jobs, founder of Apple

Communication is key to productivity for home office teams. However, it proves difficult to communicate with people who work remotely.

However, thanks to Microsoft Teams, there are great ways to stay in touch with your team and also get the added benefits of Teams. In addition to the communication options, Microsoft Teams is the central platform for the Microsoft365 environment. You can also integrate external apps with Microsoft to customize your work environment.

3. How autonomously does your remote team work?

Good project managers excelled in the office by taking care of the team members a lot. Questions could be answered quickly and the team could be rounded up quickly if there was something important to discuss.

Meanwhile, remote teams require different dynamics. Above all, it’s about autonomous working. Constant checking or asking questions is seen as annoying in remote teams.

Instead, you need to build more trust in your employees. Workplaces that give their employees more freedom are more popular, resulting in higher employee satisfaction. Millennials in particular are looking for jobs with more autonomy.

Set the right boundaries

Instead of checking in on your employees regularly, define clear goals, deadlines, and updates. Start by trusting that your team can successfully do their jobs while they’re without constant supervision.

4. Track your work hours

Tracking your work hours with a project time tracking tool can bring transparency and visibility of your projects to a new level.

In addition, by tracking your working hours, you have documented who is involved in which task and most importantly, who worked on which project/task for how long. This opens up new evaluation possibilities for you as a project manager.

With our project time tracking tool, you can also make the most of the advantages of the M365 environment.

On one hand, you can use the timeghost app for Teams to track your working hours directly in Teams. Simply go to the Teams Store and search for timeghost.

Then you can pin the app to the sidebar, as shown in the GIF.

On the other hand, timeghost provides workflows to other M365 programs, such as SharePoint, Planner, Azure, or Outlook, giving you and your team the ability to use project time tracking integrated into the Microsoft365 environment, as well as connect other programs to the software.

Test timeghost

Feel free to try our 14 days free trial and test timeghost with your team. It will definitely be worth it!

Here you will learn how to best get started with the tool so that the software immediately offers you added value.

If you have any questions about the software, feel free to contact support@timeghost.io.

Get the timeghost Teams App

You only need to install the timeghost Teams App directly from the AppSource Store in the application. You can find a manual on how to do this right here. The app includes all features that you know from the web client and since you use your Office 365 account to access the software you’re set and done in only a few seconds.