How to Manage Remote Work as a Startup or Small Business Founder

Are you a startup founder or the CEO of a small or medium-sized business? If you have employees or contractors working remotely, you may have already discovered how challenging it can be.

The chances of remote work disappearing anytime soon, though, are practically zero. A year of working from home has given many people a sense of personal freedom that they’re hesitant to give up. Who wants to commute for 30 minutes to a traditional office when you can commute 30 steps to your private home office? This means that, if you’re committed to achieving the goals you set when you started your company, remote work will be a critical part of the process.

In this article, we’ll uncover ways you can streamline remote work - both for yourself and your employees - so that you can grow your business consistently and efficiently.

Understand that the realities of working from home are different for everyone.

If you’re managing a company or leading a small business toward growth, you might assume that your remote team members’ minds are fully locked on their job tasks. After all, they’re working from home, so nothing’s keeping them from being at their best, right? Take a quick look at how your own day goes when you’re working from home.

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Chances are, you deal with dozens - if not hundreds - of distractions every day. Some of them are easy to brush off, while others can practically ruin your chances of productivity. Maybe you’ve mastered your work-at-home environment, maybe not. Either way, remember that everyone else’s remote work circumstances are different. It’s important to empathize with employees and help them find solutions to balance their work and home lives more efficiently.

‍Brent Gleeson wrote in Forbes that even top-performing workers can experience declines in engagement and performance when working remotely. You can help them by providing resources - including virtual one-on-one meetings - to restore their enthusiasm and put them back at the top of their games.

Establish clear communication rules.

Communication is vital not only for completing team projects and meeting company goals, but for establishing an environment of trust and accountability. Unfortunately, when you and your team are working remotely, communication can be much more challenging. One of the most effective ways to address this challenge is to set communication guidelines for your team members, and establish a system for ensuring that everyone follows them - including you.

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You might require all team members to meet virtually for 15 minutes a day, or for an hour once a week. Make sure that every team member gets a chance to voice concerns and ask questions to ensure they understand task details. All-team meetings are also perfect opportunities to praise individual team members for their accomplishments. Another effective guideline is to require team members to answer or delegate inquiries within 24 hours during the normal work week. Again, you’ll want to make sure you’re following these same guidelines yourself; otherwise, your employees will have no motivation to follow the rules themselves.

Invest in a Desktop as a Service (DaaS)

Technology remains one of the most common barriers to remote working success. As hard as startup and small business owners like you work to foster a team environment, working outside the office can present real challenges to many employees. A desktop as a service (Daas) platform can help you - and your employees - conquer these challenges.

What is a DaaS?

‍A DaaS is a platform that allows employees to truly work from anywhere - from their home offices to a hotel room across the country - seamlessly and productively. Using any Internet-enabled device, employees can access their software, files, apps, and other data anywhere. Even better, running software from the cloud eliminates issues with device compatibility and system requirements.

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DaaS options like Flaneer help turn any connected device into a creative powerhouse; however, they also offer simplicity. Employees are happy to use a solution when it gives them a fully powered workdesk with just a single click! Best of all, Flaneer takes away all of the IT worries surrounding data security. None of the information is stored on any employee’s local device, so there’s no chance of data being lost, stolen, or misused.

Your BYOD policy is finally in your control.

Startups and small businesses often find “bring your own device” to be an attractive policy, because it limits expenditures on individual desktop, laptop, and mobile devices purchased for employees. As a founder, you certainly don’t want the liability of purchasing devices for remote workers to take home and use. But you also don’t want the liability of having employees’ unvetted devices connecting to your business network. DaaS takes away the challenges of BYOD policies - the virtual interface protects your network against attacks and data loss. You get the sophisticated cybersecurity that bigger companies rely on, without the massive cost.

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Get access to skilled workers around the globe.

When you integrate a DaaS platform like Flaneer into your business, you no longer have to rely solely on workers from a certain geographic area. You have the ability to tap into talented professionals from around the world. These people can bring new dimensions to your team and help your company grow for decades to come. You can track sessions, collaborate across time zones, and even manage expenses - giving you control over tasks even when your teammates live on different continents.

To find out more about how Flaneer is helping startup and small business owners unlock the potential of their businesses through streamlined remote work, click here to learn more about their simple-to-use DaaS solutions.

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