5 tips for small businesses working as a virtual team

Virtual work is here to stay. A survey by PwC discovered that more than 80% of employers believe remote work has been a success during the pandemic.

Telework has long benefited small businesses and nimble startups. A deep sea of inexpensive tools are available to help virtual teams stay on track, many of which have only gotten better during the pandemic. Here's a look at a few of the most useful tools for virtual collaborators, along with best practices for how to integrate them effectively.

Define the right time for each comms tool
We all hate when the meeting could've been an email, right? There are so many inexpensive, instant ways to communicate: texts, online chats, video meetings and yes, email. Smart leaders will establish and share a concrete guide indicating when colleagues should utilize each communications medium, author Erica Dhawan told Harvard Business Review. This practice will cut down on time spent reading duplicated messaging and thus increase the team's efficiency.

Text messages, for example, should be reserved for the most urgent needs. Video conferences require advance scheduling and should be utilized when groups of colleagues or clients would benefit from visuals such as slide decks. Emails are the right forum for communication that guides a process and might need to be referenced later; revealing subject lines are essential. Requests made internally via email should generate a response within 24 hours. Short conversations requiring immediate feedback should be held via Slack, Google Chat or a similar group messaging platform.

Select and stick with a project management tool
Workflow trackers like Asana or Trello are essential for project management. Clockify is another free tool to help small teams monitor their workflow.

It's worth researching these tools seriously to determine the best fit. Small businesses will want to look for cloud-based solutions accessible anywhere, rely on automated notices and calendar reminders to keep work flowing, and be able to assign work seamlessly between colleagues. At any moment, it should be clear who is accomplishing each task — and what's next.

While the above are larger systems that include messaging and other tools, colleagues can also collaborate using simpler to-do list trackers like Kanban and Things.

A quick way to place your John Hancock
From tax forms to contracts, it's still necessary to have documents signed by employees and clients alike. This can be messy in a distanced environment, requiring printers, scanners and attachments.

Having an account with DocuSign or HelloSign allows anyone on the team to request signatures or sign documents themselves. These systems seamlessly avoid the risks and mess that comes with email attachments of documents signed with Adobe or Preview.

DocuSign claims to help its users save an average of nine days of turnaround time as compared to paper documents.

Remote work is great for small businesses as long as leaders utilize the right tools and implement best practices.

Think broadly: Cultivate wide understanding among colleagues
It can be easy to accidentally create silos by keeping group meetings small. But today's video conferencing solutions make it easy for junior colleagues or teammates whose work is tangentially relevant to the topic of the day to observe meetings in the background.

Why would a small business do this? According to Harvard Business Review, research shows that there's power in wide networks of connection and understanding within an organization. Colleagues who understand the company's processes and goals will better grasp the context of their work and be able to provide more value.

So next time you're sending out a group meeting invitation — provided a video meeting is warranted, of course — consider adding some newer or junior colleagues, if only as back-bench observers.

If colleagues can't attend a meeting, team leaders might consider temporarily storing a recording of the discussion on a platform like DropBox. This saves valuable catch-up time for essential colleagues and creates transparency, which is not always easy to do in a virtual environment.

Stay on pace with time-tracking tools
Time-tracking tools benefit small-business owners who seek to minimize their administrative burdens as well as employees who use the trackers to stay on task.

Tools like Hourly or Harvest App automate tedious work that used to involve logbooks, spreadsheets and a lot of sweat. Now employees can clock in and out, indicate where they're working and which tasks they're tackling within a single cloud-based tool. Employers can see each colleague's data and handle payroll far more easily.

These tracking tools can also prevent lawsuits or costly errors in the payroll process. Such conflicts can necessitate an attorney.

If your virtual small business would like legal guidance in any of its processes, please reach out to the Law Offices of Donald W. Hudspeth, P.C.

Categorised in: Starting a Business in Arizona

This post was written by