Insidious enemies of efficiency in a remote business mode:
- insufficient organization of the work process;
- inability to conclude contracts and pay bills;
- the difficulty of controlling work tasks;
- decrease in involvement in the work process;
- loss of work files and documents.
For remote business management, advice on psychology and time management is not enough. This requires a special service. Using Bitrix24 as an example, let’s see how it works.
Step 1. Creating a single workspace for all employees.
This will involve colleagues in a common cause and allow everyone to work with the same set of tools, building “transparent” communication between departments. Such tools can be tasks for today, general chats, public information, deadlines, cloud disk, and much more. And all this in one interface.
Step 2. Stay in touch with people working from home.
Remote work is not a reason to forget about discipline and corporate ethics. At the general meeting, indicate to employees the new format of work and outline the updated business requirements. The main thing here is to set the boundaries of the working day, when everyone should be continuously in touch, with the exception of breaks. The manager must be notified in advance of the day off.
Don’t forget to maintain the integrity of the company: share news, publicly celebrate the successes of departments, encourage colleagues and don’t forget to congratulate them on significant events.
Step 3. Chat according to the rules.
Despite the ease of use, chats have their own characteristics. Continuous messages distract from work in much the same way as the noise and hustle and bustle of the office. Therefore, it is worth opening separate chat rooms for urgent messages and all kinds of discussions.
And never communicate by voice messages, unfortunately, keyword search does not work in them.
Step 4: Organize periodic video calls with the team.
This is one of the most effective working tools. After all, there is eye contact and the ability to quickly make collective decisions. Without live communication, the team does not feel a sense of motivation, and individual employees even feel lonely.
Step 5. Creating a common info field for the entire company.
Everyone has a preferred messenger or social network. When switching to a remote form of work, employees each use their favorite way to communicate with the team. This is not secure and may violate the company’s privacy. Not to mention breaking the chain of interaction.
In Bitrix24 there is a “live feed” as an analogue of a feed in social networks. It can be adapted to the positions of individual employees, departments or the company as a whole. It’s convenient and efficient. Here you can place texts for approval, photos and sample documents.
Step 6. Organize routine tasks.
The most difficult part of moving a business to remote management is ensuring that everyone has access to regular workflows. Some of them are difficult to translate online, as they are related to documents, finances and the office. Many standard processes need to be digitized – hiring and firing personnel, registering vacations, creating an invoice.
Step 7. Record all assignments in tasks.
At a distance, the manager does not see the entire front of the work of his subordinates and control over it is difficult. Therefore, each assignment must be designated as a task for an individual employee, and for the department as a whole, put under control by the department manager.
Step 8. Create a clear control and reporting system
Remote work does not imply the manifestation of dictatorship. After all, if employees lose motivation, the manager will not notice this and eventually lose the team. Therefore, it is better if each member of the team records the completion of tasks and sends this list to the manager in a free form.
Step 9. Move the sales team to CRM.
Despite the fact that the use of CRM is already a must-have for European business, 63% of Ukrainian companies know nothing about this system. And only 14% use CRM. Since this is an automated system of customer relations, special software, the sales department cannot exist without it. In a remote work mode, CRM reduces the impact of the human factor on work efficiency. Managers will not forget about individual clients, and will always know at what stage the transaction is and what the next step will be. And the manager can redistribute the load, if necessary.
Step 10. Work with clients through CRM.
When transferring a business to remote work, customers should not notice the changes. It is important that they receive feedback as quickly as possible, orders are processed as before, all phones must be available.
In Bitrix24, all calls, including missed ones, are stored in the system. All applications are automatically divided among employees, thus the loss of customers is reduced to zero.
Expert in legal marketing. Head of marketing agency MAVR.
Business degree “Master of Business Administration” (MBA).