How to create a remote work plan for quick implementation

Change is never easy, but there’s plenty that you can do to support your team’s transition to remote work. The ideal scenario would be one so seamless that the team’s workflow is barely disrupted. And you get bonus points for minimizing stress overall.

Especially if working from home is a new experience for most people, you’ll need a solid plan for making the shift easier. We’re going to talk about how to create a remote work plan that removes common barriers and helps you to maximize the benefits of remote work.

Key considerations when you move your team home 

There are three main components that go into creating a remote work plan. Each impacts how quickly your team will adjust and whether their workflow can continue without a hitch. Often, managers overlook these strategies or put them to work late in the game. But you can keep everyone’s stress to a minimum with these priorities that facilitate speed, transparency, and simplicity.

Minimize the learning curve with the right tools

Cloud-based remote work tools are not hard to come by; the hard part is choosing the right one for your team. Everything from internal chat tools to file-hosting websites is available in a myriad of options. Some apps, like Slack and Dropbox, have been around for years. When you know what you’re getting, it can take the edge off of choosing the right tool for your team.

But, as you’re narrowing down your options, be sure to consider the learning curve involved and the tool’s ease of use for the long term. Remember that team members will have to be trained on every new tool. Especially to minimize workflow disruption and maximize remote productivity, you will need ways to manage team projects and tasks, track and adjust workloads, generate reports, and more. You could consider an all-in-one remote work platform to help your team learn and integrate critical features faster.

The best, most intuitive tools don’t take long to learn.

Avoid team confusion and burnout

Even when only part of your team works from home, you’ll find that workload management can get away from you. If that happens, your team will feel it. Communication and collaboration will break down because team members don’t know what to do or they’re doing too much. And micromanagement is not the answer to this problem.

Planning, organizing, and tracking a remote team’s workload across multiple time zones is especially challenging. But with a combination of task management software and tools that provide visibility — like a shared calendar or Gantt chart — you will know how people are doing (without being invasive). This high-level perspective helps you to set clear, reasonable expectations and discuss preferred work styles in advance. The right tools help each team member to navigate and manage their own remote desk.

A structured approach helps to establish clear expectations and empower team members to manage their parts of the whole.

Consolidate various remote tools for an integrated solution

Adopting individual remote tools as you need them is, in some ways, better than doing nothing. But not every app integrates well with others. Some don’t work together at all. If that ends up being the case, you could be stuck trouble-shooting glitches or searching for new tools every few months—when the original goal was to develop a seamless remote work plan.

So, before you invest in various tools to fill different functions, consider using an all-in-one platform designed for remote work. Having a single and secure hub for communication, project resources, and your favorite apps simplifies workflow for the entire team. And with the option for single sign-on with Google or Microsoft, transitioning to remote work gets even faster, more straightforward, and effortless.

Why opt for many separate tools when they can all be accessible from one intuitive space?

How to create a remote work plan your team will love

Of course, it’s not enough that the onboarding process with new software or operational procedures is seamless. It can’t stop there. You also need your tools to evolve with your team. You need a platform that is pleasant to use every day — not one that is difficult to navigate because it’s bloated with features. Remember, the goal is to eliminate roadblocks to productivity and motivate your team all along the way.

Knowing how to create a plan for remote work that also keeps an eye on your team’s future is as important as a quick ramp-up. These days, change happens quickly — from within and without. An all-in-one tool that is beautifully designed, intuitive to use, and built to scale will help you keep up. And it will help keep your team engaged and loving the work.

With an all-in-one platform like Flow, transitioning to a remote work model has never been easier. Shift your team’s productivity and motivation into high gear today with a free trial of Flow!