Remote work has turned the business world upside down and brought many positive
changes. However, we can’t overlook the negative effects of remote work.

With your team out of your reach, it’s more difficult to motivate them. The isolation can
lower the team’s productiveness and get you running after the deadlines.

While the decreased team visibility and increased distractions aren’t avertable, you can
learn how to deal with them. With a few tips, tricks, and tools, you can make sure that
remote work doesn’t affect your deadlines. You can make it easier for the team to
deliver the desired results and teach them to maximize the benefits of remote working.

Without further ado, we present to you practical tips that will help your remote team
meet deadlines.

1. Keep the Communication Alive

Communication is the key to any healthy relationship, and business relationships are no
exception. You need consistent communication with your team members. This allows
you to check how they’re doing, discuss any issues timely, and keep them motivated.

Do regular check-ins and enable two-way communication. Sending out a bunch of
emails and reminders isn’t enough. Ask the team about their opinions, their progress, or any problems they might be encountering.

The technology has removed any communication obstacles. You can use video calling,
voice calls, instant messages, or collaboration tools to keep in touch with your team.

Effective and consistent communication eliminates the isolation, enables you to react on
time if there are any setbacks, and reminds your team that you are all in this together.

2. Split Goals into Milestones

The end goal can seem too far away from the starting point. Setting final goals is necessary, but they aren’t close enough to create some positive pressure. That’s why you need to set milestones.

Milestones will make the final goal tangible. They can enable you to keep track of the project more easily and to ensure that everything is going according to plan.
Meeting the final deadline won’t be as intimidating when you set specific steps that lead to that goal.

Also, your team will gain some discipline. They won’t feel like they have all the time in the world since the next milestone will be just around the corner.

Too much freedom leads to procrastination. So, milestones will give you some discipline and consistency in work.

3. Note Down the Reoccurring Inefficiencies

What are your team’s weak sides? There are two sides to the coin, thus, every team
has its strengths and weaknesses.

Don’t try to pretend that your team is perfect. Instead, embrace the weaknesses and
count on them during the project.

Let’s say that one of your team members always submits their work at the last minute. If
you are aware of that, give him or her a shorter deadline. This will give you enough time
to check the work they submitted before the final deadline.

The same goes for any other potential issue. You need to keep in mind any  “trouble-
making” characteristics of your remote workers and organize the workload accordingly.

4. Balance Out the Responsibilities

Too much workload can lead to burnout. If you don’t pay attention to the amount of work that individuals are taking on, the balance can be lost.

When there is too much work weight on someone’s shoulders, stress, tension, and
exhaustion step on the scene. Then, there come the disagreements, mistakes, and
even resentment for disbalance in workload.
You need to designate the responsibilities equally. In case one of the team members is
swamped, others should step in.

For example, if the essay writer is overwhelmed, you can get a different team member
to help with the research. Nowadays, information is easily accessed. A non-writer can
discover here essay samples and collect the best references for the writer.

The project manager needs to prevent potential burnouts that can lead to stress and
prolonging the deadline. Creating a balance in responsibilities is the solution.

5. Employ the Right Tools

To meet the deadlines, your team needs to be connected and organized. You can’t
have it any other way. For that reason, you need proper tools.

 Use tools that enable collaboration, time-tracking, organization, and project
management. You can mix different tools to get these functionalities or use tools like
Workep that has it all.

Collaboration tools are designed for remote working. They are, therefore, designed to make such a work environment easier and more streamlined.

With the right tools, you can keep your team organized and efficient. That is, you can
help your team to work as one and meet deadlines.

6. Train the Team

The team needs to know how to use the tools to their full advantage. You need to
educate them about all the useful features.

If you throw the software at the team and let them explore it by themselves, they can
overlook important functionalities. Without the team properly reporting their progress or tracking their time, you won’t be able to take timely actions for meeting deadlines.

The only way to ensure that everyone is fully acquainted with the tools is to teach them.
Organize a quick training session whenever you introduce a new tool.

7. Make the Information Available

Any relevant information should be within your team’s reach. At all times.
Have data and information storage that can be accessed by any team member at any
time. You should share the information such as:

● Project guidelines
● Client details
● Milestones
● Deadlines
● Tasks

The remote workers often have their own work schedules. Therefore, you need to
enable information access without disrupting an employee’s free time.

Create a database, and you won’t have to worry about information access. The team
members will be able to keep track of what others are doing, how the project is
progressing, and also to get all the information whenever they need it.

Wrapping Up

Meeting deadlines doesn’t need to be stressful. With good organization, suitable tools,
and efficient collaboration, you can complete the projects without difficulties.

Turn your remote team into a productive group of organized and content people. Even
seemingly small changes can make a world of difference for your remote team and its
efficiency.