Does Your Team Have the Strategies and Tools to Maximize Remote Work?With more companies allowing people to work from home, owners and employees need a new playbook for success.

Remote work is now more popular than ever since businesses can be run from anywhere at any time. But certain factors like outdated legacy tools or poorly executed remote strategies can prevent your teams from working to their full potential and possibly even harm your company's growth.

The good news: There are plenty of tried-and-true ways to mobilize your team and help employees maximize productivity—whether they're in the office or working from home, a coffee shop, or even overseas. Here are some ways to get started.

Prioritize communications

The way your teams interact and communicate in a remote environment is different to how they can collaborate face-to-face. As such, leaders need to ensure that there are clear channels of communication in place.

For example, with remote work, there are hundreds—sometimes even thousands—of messages being sent across an organization at a given time. Without a streamlined tool or process, your teams run the risk of getting wires crossed. "When you're not all in the office together and can't have those quick conversations about gathering more information or decision-making, there needs to be a consistent communication plan or reporting structure that allows you to have these types of remote conversations to then be more agile," says Bryan Allen, VP of SMB Marketing atRingCentral.

To help keep strong communications at the forefront of your operations, it's important to implement expectations around how or when your employees communicate, as well as the tools needed to facilitate those conversations. It's recommended that companies seek out a unified communications solution that can connect employees with each other, and customers, across instant messaging, text messaging, video calls, or virtual conferencing. It's also helpful to keep an updated, shared calendar for employees to know when it is acceptable or appropriate to reach one another through these communication mediums.

Provide teams with the tools they need to be successful

With the drastic shift to remote work, there are new project management, communication, and customer experience platforms that are emerging, seemingly every day. Choosing which tools will help your employees stay productive, and getting the most from them, is essential to success in a hybrid or remote work setting.

Sometimes, however, the implementation of these tools can be a difficult undertaking. "You need to consider how these technologies can integrate into your overall business technology stack," Allen says. "Different departments within your business will require different resources, so it's crucial to implement tools that are modular or flexible to meet the needs of each department."

Incorporating a unified communications solution that can integrate into your entire business tech stack can provide your employees with the opportunity to communicate, collaborate, and share files without jumping from application to application.

Phoenix Virtual Solutions, an offshore staffing company for healthcare providers, medical facilities, and management companies, utilizes RingCentral as their unified communications solution.

Mel Rebong, CEO of Phoenix Virtual Solutions, says, "RingCentral's Unified Communications Solutions, combined with employees' role of providing optimum healthcare staffing solutions and services, provide our clients and our company with better engagement, easy team access, and secure collaboration using multimedia platforms."

Remember, empowered employees are happy employees

In a remote setting, an employee might sometimes need to make a snap decision without input or collaboration from another team member. This, in theory, might sound risky, but Allen believes that if you focus on empowering your employees to make decisions or act, your teams will be more productive and agile.

"Leaders need to make sure that expectations are clear while trusting your teams to get the job done. Sometimes progress can be hindered by unnecessary red tape or process. Processes are still important, of course, but leaders should focus on eliminating these roadblocks, especially, in the remote setting," he says.

员工授权可以在几个不同的forms, but incorporating solid feedback structures, investing in learning and development opportunities, and providing a combination of strong communication strategies and the right technology are a great place to start.

At Phoenix Virtual Solutions, RingCentral is at the heart of its operational successes, particularly now with the rise of remote work. "It is as if our people are next to each other physically, even if they are miles apart," Rebong says.

Click hereto learn more about how RingCentral can help your small business take remote communications and collaboration to the next level.