You’re busy, fast food is easy, and the couch is comfy. 

A productive team is a healthy team, so why not help your team make better lifestyle choices with the Healthy Heart program? 

If you need some help in the right direction the Kineo Healthy Heart program powered by Go1 is the best place to start. The 7 healthy heart titles are suited to organisations looking to promote health and wellbeing amongst their employees and create a workplace wellbeing program for their staff. 

Created by leading subject matter experts in health, nutrition and wellbeing at the University of South Australia. These courses provide learners useful tips and tricks for staying healthy in the workplace.  Find out more here. 

Healthy Heart is a behaviour-focused program; featuring highly engaging activities with premium animations, illustrations and downloadable resources. Averaging 20 minutes each, these 7 titles are your guide to effective lifestyle changes. 

Provides your staff understanding of the basic elements of a heart-healthy lifestyle and the importance of a heart-healthy lifestyle, and how you can make healthy changes to your lifestyle. 

Provides your staff understanding of what blood pressure is, the risk factors that can cause high blood pressure, and 
how to identify which risk factors can be improved through lifestyle changes. 

Provides your staff understanding of the key elements of a heart healthy diet, and how food can affect the risk factors for heart disease. 

Provides your staff understanding of the relationship between weight and heart disease and how much energy the body requires. 

Provides your staff understanding of diabetes as a condition, how and why diabetes develops, and how to prevent it developing. 

Provides your staff understanding of how activity levels affect health, the factors that can prevent us from exercising 
adequately, and strategies to help us increase our level of physical activity. 

Provides your staff understanding of the importance of pre-planning your shop, strategies to make healthy shopping decisions, and how to read nutrition labels. 

If you want to join the wellbeing movement contact us today. 

False

There are many articles out there about the importance of your employees mental health, but what about their physical health?

Do your employees have good nutrition, sleep and exercise habits? 

Do they drink four coffees before entering a meeting? Or do they crave sugary snacks to get them through the last two hours of the working day? 

Unfortunately these unhealthy work habits are all too common. 

Employers have a unique opportunity to improve the health and wellbeing of their staff. By creating a positive, safe and healthy environment for employees, you can increase morale, improve your employees’ work-life balance and, in turn, positively impact your business.

While it is widely known that working is good for people’s health and wellbeing, it’s increasingly being recognised that a healthy workforce is beneficial to employers too. The key to increasing an organisation’s performance and productivity levels is the wellbeing of its greatest asset – its employees. This is why supporting a workplace wellbeing program and encouraging a work-life balance is highly recommended.

According to the Australian Government, healthy workplaces can help to make businesses more productive and employees more engaged. Therefore, promoting and supporting health in the workplace is not only common sense, but it makes good business sense too. 

Here are just some of the facts and figures out there about the positive benefits a workplace health program could have in the workplace:

It has been estimated that the healthiest Australian employees are three times more productive at work than their colleagues

The increase in preventable disease and workplace injury resulting from unhealthy living is a major cause of workplace absence or disruption 

Lifestyle risk factors such as smoking, excessive drinking, poor diet, inactivity and excess body weight can contribute to time away from work

Loss in productivity due to obesity through absenteeism, attending work when sick and premature death is estimated to cost $6.4 billion a year

Employers who run health and wellbeing programs do so because they want to: 

Improve work performance and productivity 

Reduce costs associated with absenteeism, presenteeism, disability and workers’ compensation 

Improve the culture of the organisation and retain existing employees

Improve the organisation’s image, attract talented employees and fulfill corporate social responsibility obligations

Benefits of a healthy workplace for employees:

Increase in health awareness and knowledge

Increase in physical health and mental wellbeing

Improved morale, job satisfaction and motivation

Improved opportunities for a healthier lifestyle

Greater capacity to enjoy life both in and outside the workplace

Promoting workplace wellbeing by offering increased education and support will benefit organisations in the long-term as individuals develop healthier behaviours, both in and out of the office. By increasing levels of happiness, inspiration and motivation in the workplace, you can positively impact the overall performance of your organisation.

Bottom line is: Healthy workers = healthy organisations = healthy business performance. 

If you need some help in the right direction, the Kineo Healthy Heart program powered by Go1 is the best place to start. The seven healthy heart titles are suited to organisations looking to promote health and wellbeing amongst their employees and create a workplace wellbeing program for their staff. Created by leading subject matter experts in health, nutrition and wellbeing at the University of South Australia, these courses provide learners useful tips and tricks for staying healthy in the workplace. Find out more here. 

The need for workplaces to promote and foster physical wellbeing in employees has never been greater. 

Learn more about the Kineo Healthy Heart Program today! 

Part 2 of our Aged Care Quality Standards series

As of July 1st 2019, the new Aged Care Quality Standards will be in place across Australia. The standards will apply to all aged care services, including residential care, home care, flexible care and services under the Commonwealth Home Support Program. Now is the time to familiarise yourself with them.  

In order to meet the standards, staff must be well-equipped and feel confident in delivering the best possible care. To support this, Go1 has partnered with Australian training provider Aged Care Learning Solutions to bring you all the online training courses you need to be ACQS compliant.

This article delves into Standard 2, which covers guidelines for ongoing assessment and planning with consumers. As set out in Standard 1, the consumer’s right to decision-making and choice is paramount, and should be at the centre of the planning and assessment process.  

Why ongoing assessment and planning is key

When providing support for consumers in aged care, it is reasonable to assume that an individual’s needs could completely change from one day to the next.  With this in mind, an ongoing assessment and planning process is crucial. A care plan which remains static for too long will very quickly become out of date, and fail to provide the appropriate support.

Many organisations providing aged care to consumers are also large and complex. This means communication between members of the workforce can be complicated.  When care plans are personalised and reviewed regularly with the consumer, every member of the team involved in that particular individual’s care will have a roadmap to providing the safe and effective care that individual needs.  

Where possible, the consumer should lead the assessment and planning process and get the support they need if they have other challenges including illness, disability or cognitive impairment.  Individuals in your care will be far happier if they have agency over the care they receive. Helping the consumer to maintain independence is also necessary for meeting Standard 1 - the foundation of the eight standards. 

Below is our checklist of questions for aged care providers to use and to generate conversation around the topic. The advice we share is to be implemented at the discretion of those responsible for the quality of aged care provision. Staff wishing to implement changes should do so in consultation with colleagues and line managers. 

Checklist for effective assessment and planning with consumers

As an aged care provider, ensuring you have the correct assessment and planning systems in place can be a challenge. There are many different aspects to providing quality care, and some are difficult to measure. Yet, the vulnerable people in your care deserve attention to detail and a high-quality service.

Whether you already have a rigorous assessment and planning process in place, or your systems need an overhaul, this checklist will help you to review your service in time for July 1st: 

1. Do your planning and assessment processes enable consumers and the team around them to work together?

As explained above, communication between consumers, their representatives, staff members and others is key. The consumer should lead all opportunities for assessment and planning, unless they have difficulty doing so for medical reasons.  Where a consumer has difficulty communicating, it is important to provide as much support as possible for the consumer to make their wishes known.  

It is also essential to listen carefully to consumers’ thoughts and feelings on how their care should progress. Although your members of staff will be well-trained and often highly experienced, the wishes of the consumer should lead the conversation.  

If the organisation is unable to meet a consumer's expectations, this needs to be managed respectfully and the consumer should be informed about other service providers more able to effectively meet their needs.

2. Are you incorporating information from other sources in your assessment process, such as government assessment services?

Although assessment and planning processes within your organisation may already be rigorous, incorporating information from other sources, such as government services, is also useful. 

Looking to organisations beyond your own organisation to support in-house assessment broadens the choice for the consumer and gives them access to a wider range of support.  Assessment can be a complicated process, and additional services can offer guidance on how best to assess the needs of consumers in your care. 

Equally, it is important to consider how these additional services will work alongside your own, and to manage their inclusion seamlessly. 

3. Does your team use validated risk-assessment planning tools, with input from qualified practitioners?

Completing risk-assessments can be time-consuming, but they are necessary for keeping consumers in your care safe and comfortable.  Of course, we want consumers to have as much freedom as possible, and so involving the consumer in the risk-assessment process can be helpful. For example, on a day trip, the consumer may be the best judge of what they can and can’t do safely.

The input from other medical or allied professionals is an important part of the assessment and planning process where it is appropriate and will be of benefit for the consumer.  

4. How does your organisation know whether planning and assessment systems result in safe and effective care services? 

It is also paramount to ensure your assessment systems translate well to the practical environment, and work for individual consumers. 

One of the best ways to determine whether or not an assessment system is working is to ask consumers for feedback.  Their responses will be your best guide as to whether the system functions, as their needs and wishes should be at the centre of the process. 

This includes reviewing assessment systems on a regular basis, both with the input from consumers and the team around them.  Assessment should be an ongoing process, and should inform planning.

On reflection, are there any changes you need to make to your assessment systems? For information and support with meeting the requirements for Standard 2, you can find more reflective questions on the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission website.  

If you have a Go1 Premium portal, log in to view the Aged Care Learning Solutions video guide to Standard 2. Here, you will also find learning resources related to Standard 2. 

Partnering to Plan and Deliver Care (including advanced care and end of life planning)

Documentation, Collaboration and Communication

Tools to review your assessment and planning processes for the new ACQS

Go1 is pleased to announce a new content partnership in the UK, teaming up with digital learning and performance specialists Trainology.

Based in London, Trainology began by helping legal clients meet their regulatory training requirements and has expanded across multiple sectors with their Learn, Engage and Perform product suites.

The partnership gives Trainology the digital capabilities to deliver their own elearning content as well as provide consulting and customised digital learning solutions to clients. 

“Go1’s innovative drive, best-in-class content offering and tireless support makes them the ideal partner for us to navigate the rapidly changing environment of learning and development." 

“The combination of our learning and performance capability and Go1’s huge content library and intuitive training platform enables us to offer clients the most comprehensive, relevant and affordable learning solutions on the market. We are excited to be breaking new ground together. ”

Go1 Content Partnerships Global VP, Rohan Chandler, said:

“Trainology is one of the UK’s most recognised names in the corporate learning space and Go1 is proud to form our first partnership in the region with such an established brand.

“They offer intuitive and easy to use platforms that are central to up-skilling an ever-demanding workforce as they seek to advance their careers. 

“Together, Go1 and Trainology will help employers and their staff achieve their training and compliance goals anywhere, anytime”. 

Trainology are digital learning and performance specialists helping clients in all sectors expand their human capital and grow their productivity using their 3-pronged approach: Learn – L&D consultancy, courses and platforms; Engage – employee benefits and rewards; and Perform – blended programmes by a tribe of experts. 

Since launching in 2015 to help legal firms meet their regulatory training requirements in the UK, Trainology have expanded into the financial services, healthcare, health and safety, and veterinary sectors.  

Go1 makes it easy for businesses to train their staff, with the world’s largest compliance, professional development and general training marketplace. By providing a single platform that extends from first aid training through to degree bearing courses, Go1 makes it easy to find and compare the best training options available. The marketplace features over 500,000 courses and other learning items created by local and international experts. Customers include SEEK.com.au, Oxford University, State and Local Governments and St John Ambulance.

Since launching in 2015, Go1 has grown to be a world leader in online learning and education. Local and overseas investors include Y Combinator, SEEK, M12, Tank Stream Ventures, Black Sheep Capital, and Our Innovation Fund.

Introducing Trainology – digital learning and performance specialists

It's customer service training month at Go1. 

In June we're focusing on all things related to customer service training - this week read about Go1’s customer service courses tailored to different industries. 

Customer service courses for the hospitality sector 

In the hospitality industry, customer service training is one of the most vital categories of training employees will ever receive.  Guests expect to be treated in specific ways, and your employees need to know how to meet those expectations. 

Go1 has multiple providers who offer specific training orientated for staff in the hospitality industry, we've spotlighted two courses:

Direction Associates has serval courses designed for all operational ‘front facing’ hotel staff. This course will help staff learn how to identify the different needs of different customers (for example needs of leisure, families, conference and corporate customers). Users can also learn how to handle problems positively along with other general customer service skills appropriate to hospitality teams. 

Direction Training Associates are a UK-based hospitality training provider. Their courses are developed by in-house hospitality professionals. In Premium you will find courses for bar tending, housekeeping, compliance for hospitality staff.

Customer Service Skills: How We Can All Improve

The main objective of this Go1 course is to suggest to your staff ways to help improve the service they provide to customers. Learners will be walked through customer expectations and how to handle customer problems effectively. 

 Training Today has a catalogue of compliance courses available in Go1 Premium created for our US market. With over 110 courses, Training Today is a great provider to use for your hospitality training. Training Today is only available to US-based Go1 customers. 

Customer service courses for the retail sector 

Retail customer service involves all the small interactions that make a shopper feel special. This usually involves providing customers with assistance, answering their questions and helping them solve problems. There are some factors specific to this industry that make it important to offer your staff courses tailored to their industry.

Go1 has various providers who offer specific training orientated for the retail industry, we've spotlighted two courses:

In retail, customer satisfaction is determined by how well a customer's needs have been met before, during and after any sales or service interaction. Providing a level of customer service that exceeds a customer's expectations should be the objective of each interaction that you have. This can be achieved by using a standardised process that follows a series of logical steps designed to maximise the efficiency and effectiveness of every customer interaction. By the end of this Catalyst courses, your staff should be able to:

Identify and explain the steps of an effective customer interaction,

Describe the benefits of applying a standardised process to customer interactions

List the differences between a good customer interaction and a poor one.

Content from Catalyst Education empowers students with practical, job ready skills when commencing or looking to advance their career. Their delivery and partner collaboration also ensures we meet the increasing complexities faced across several industries.

This module is part of Skillshub Retail Sales Academy, an online program providing learners the essential retail techniques and sales strategies, they need in their role. Skillshub promotes a “sales through service” approach and in this course users can learn how to provide great service by understanding what is most important to their customers. This session demonstrates how to get into the minds of  customers and give them the best buying experience of their lives!

Skillshub specialises in creating digital learning content that is practical, engaging and focused on action. Skillshub are a well-recognised provider in the UK/Europe, and Skillshub courses are all CPD certified for UK learners. 

Customer service courses for the Aged Care sector sector (Australian Only)

All staff, be it a care staff member, manager, nurse, director, will at some stage during their day be working with an internal or external stakeholder. In aged care staff members should be creating a great experiences everyday, you can use Go1's courses to re-set the customer service culture in your sector. 

This course provides a guide to good customer service from the first point of contact and includes strategies to support and manage people’s right to complain. This learning activity aligns to Australia's Standard 6 of the Quality Aged Care Standards.

Aged Care Learning Solutions has been helping aged care service providers meet their compliance requirements and address their unique needs since 2004. They were the first external eLearning provider to partner with the Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation and receive endorsement for their educational material.

 If you want to enrol in any of these courses, simply:

From the Search Results page -> use the provider filter to find these providers!

Want more details about customer service?

Customer service training for your industry 

Signs of stress to look out for and how to manage them 

Stress isn’t the same for everyone. Some people excel under pressure (this is called healthy eustress), while others suffer from distress. What makes the difference is our ability to cope with pressure. When pressure exceeds our ability to manage stress then we suffer from distress with serious health and performance effects. What I will share with you are the top 5 signs of stress to look out for so you know how to spot stress and manage it.

PS: Find out your stress score with this online interactive evaluation - this should take less than 5 minutes. 

Think back over the course of the last week: 

1. Did you experience any of the following symptoms: headaches, chest pain, muscle tension, nausea, or indigestion?

People think of stress as mental / emotional, but the thing is your body releases stress hormones such as cortisol and adrenaline which can cause serious long term health issues. In the shorter term, stress can manifest with physical symptoms such as troubles digesting food, headaches, nausea & tension.

Tip: Change your stress flight/fight response to a rest/repair response in just ten minutes by doing a stress release meditation right at your desk. 

2. Did you feel like there wasn't enough time to get everything done?

Stress comes from overwhelm. It will help to quantify, prioritize and reduce the pressure.

Tip: Write all of your tasks down to get them out of your head. Pick your top 3 priorities and only focus on these until you can complete some to make space for more. Hint: Align your priorities with your boss so that you can be sure that you are working on the right things. 

Further resources: Questions you must ask your boss in One on One Meetings. 

Bonus for bosses: Is your overwhelm coming from trying to do everything yourself? Follow the guide “How to identify what to develop” in the Ultimate Guide to Delegation 

3. Did you struggle to stay motivated and focused

Having clear priorities will help you to keep your motivation and focus. If you feel like you can’t concentrate because there is too much going on then this is a sign of what the yogis call “your monkey brain”. Essentially our brain hasn’t been trained to deal with all of our modern distractions (smartphone, social media, email etc. etc.). And your mind exists in an overexcited state like a monkey swinging from tree to tree.

Tip: Sometimes a little bit of success helps to build momentum. Break your big priorities into smaller tasks and do one right away. 

Helpful Resource: Train your monkey brain :-). Meditation is training for your mind so that you control your thoughts, instead of your thoughts controlling you. A single meditation can calm your brain into a focused state and regular meditation practice will train it to stay there. See this example of brain training for focus. 

4. Did you feel like the odds were against you?

Feeling all alone without hope is a distressing place to be. A problem shared is a problem halved. 

Tip: I encourage you to have regular, frequent one on ones with your boss to talk over work issues and get the advice and support you need. After all, the best bosses are those bosses who know how to listen and coach us through our problems. But it’s not always appropriate to share all of your troubles with your boss. Working with a mentor will give you an independent ear and helpful advice / support. 

Helpful Resource: How to work with a Mentor

PS: Stress can be a serious issue with significant physical and mental health impacts. Don’t be afraid to seek expert medical / counselling help.

5. Do you experience fatigue and/or struggle to fall or stay asleep?

Dealing with stress can be a double edged sword because when we are stressed, it makes it more difficult to deal with the problems we need to. And problems then build up, causing more stress.

Sleep troubles are usually some form of low level anxiety from an overactive mind. Dealing with the problems that are keeping us awake is the best way to fix sleep, but for the problems we can’t avoid we need to build up our resilience to manage stress.  

Tip: Eat the frog: Got an unpleasant task / confrontation that you have been avoiding? Deal with this first and everything else will seem easier by comparison. For those problems that aren’t so easy to chase away, use meditation to manage your stress

Wrapping up: Stay Aware, Stress is Cumulative

It’s impossible to avoid stress because life has ups and downs. Sometimes everything seems to happen at once and we find ourselves struggling to deal with life and this is when the usual pressure of life manifests itself in distress. What suffers is our happiness, our work and our health. Being stressed can make it less pleasant for others to be around you too.

Experiencing the occasional symptom is little concern, but experiencing several of these symptoms, frequently during the week is more of a cause for concern. Be aware that the effects of stress are cumulative. Over time stress can have serious physical health effects such as heart disease, obesity, diabetes and more. Stress also causes mental pressure which can contribute to anxiety and depression.

Stay aware of the signs of stress so you can spot the early symptoms, before they become an issue. If you think you may be suffering from stress then take the online stress assessment to get a more detailed evaluation. 

Keith Tatley CA(SA) founded Manager Foundation and Karm. Academy to help people with the soft skills they don’t teach you in school. This includes skills such as Effective One on One Meetings, Performance Communications and Delegation. If you would like to start your journey to become a better boss, then find out your BOSS Superpower now.

Part 1 of our Aged Care Quality Standards series

We will also be looking at the requirements listed under each of the quality standards, exploring how aged care providers can go above and beyond to deliver the highest quality care. 

We begin with Standard 1, which looks at consumer dignity and choice.  This serves as a foundation for each of the standards regarding the consumer’s right to decision-making and choice.

Requirement 3c under Standard 1 is concerned with supporting consumers to maintain their independence. When those in aged care have agency, they are far more likely to remain both physically and mentally healthy.  

Although the extent to which an individual can maintain independence will depend on the level of care they need, independence, where possible, can make a huge difference to an individual’s sense of self-worth and mental wellbeing. 

Below is our list of top tips for aged care providers to use and to generate conversation around the topic. The advice we share is to be implemented at the discretion of those responsible for the quality of aged care provision. Staff wishing to implement changes should do so in consultation with colleagues and line managers. 

Top tips for supporting consumers’ independence 

 People who require the support of an aged care provider have wide-ranging needs.  Some individuals need round-the-clock care, while others are more independent and able to complete daily routines without assistance. It is very important to adjust conversation, tone and care services to suit the needs of different consumers. 

Where possible, ask consumers what they would like assistance with, rather than assuming what would be best. Providing unnecessary assistance can be demoralising and knock confidence. On the other hand, sometimes consumers will under-estimate how much support they need, so it is important to use your professional judgment.

Although the type and level of communication possible will depend on the needs of individual consumers, it is important to consider carefully how staff are speaking with individuals in their care.  Is the language pitched at an appropriate level for the consumer? How is information recorded to ensure different staff members are aware of an individual’s communication needs? Where language is a barrier to understanding, are other methods of communication used, such as non-verbal cues and gestures? 

3. Include family, friends and the wider community

Where possible, encourage consumers to maintain contact independently with their wider communities. This may include family, friends or anybody in their support networks. If an individual in your care stays in touch with others of their own accord, this will increase their sense of independence and connection to the outside world. 

Equally, if you are finding it difficult to communicate with a person you are caring for (and there are no medical reasons for this), a family member or friend might understand how to communicate with them better. The individual in your care might also be more receptive to communicating with somebody familiar. 

4. Focus on what consumers are able to do

 When encouraging consumers to be independent, it is vital to ensure that they continue doing activities they are able to do, and for this to be the focus.  It is also important to think about how to best support individuals to continue with daily routines and tasks by themselves for as long as possible. 

The Japanese village of Okinawa has the highest number of recorded centenarians in the world, and members of its community put this down to being able to maintain what is called their Ikigai, or reason for being.  This could be something as simple as growing vegetables in a garden to share with others, or taking part in a community association. If an individual has a sense of purpose, they are far more likely to be happy and healthy.

Speak to the individuals in your care and find out what they are good at or what kinds of activities they enjoy doing most.  If it is possible for them to contribute this skill to their community in a positive way, this will create a greater sense of belonging and help them to maintain their independence.

To learn more about Standard 1, Aged Care Learning Solutions has a video guide to help you.

If you have a Go1 Premium portal, log in to view. Here, you will also find learning resources related to Standard 1. 

How to support consumers with maintaining their independence under the new ACQS 

What we know - learner engagement is integral to your training program and you want more users interacting with your Go1 learning program. So, today we are introducing the new Explore Dashboard to boost user engagement and streamline content discovery on the platform. 

The Explore Dashboard was released to Early Access a few months ago, and now it is generally available to all Premium users. 

With this release you can personalise your content recommendations via the new Explore Dashboard, to help you more easily discover the right content for your team. 

Simply add or update your teams and topics portal information and Go1's content suggestions model, will showcase the courses that are best for your learners. Our model analyses the content enrolment trends of customers in the same industry and location as your organisation to then present tailored suggestions. Also you will see two additional content blocks on this page highlighting new content on the portal and trending content on the portal. Learn about the feature here.  

Explore Dashboard is available to all customers with Premium subscribed content enabled on their portal as determined by your Portal settings < Content Selection. If your organisation doesn't have that Premium content enabled, users will be taken to the search results page when they select Explore from the top navigation bar. 

To personalise the content recommendations for your portal, head to Portal Settings < Recommendations and select Improve Your Recommendations. 

To access the search results page(formerly Explore Page) begin your search in the search bar provided. 

The Explore Dashboard is available to all users on your platform, the topics of interest are only available for Admins to update in Portal Setting.  

The team has re-instated some previous functionality. Now when a user starts searching for content they will see a list of suggested content items drop down based on the keywords in the search. All suggestions will also identify the content item type: eg course, video, award. 

It's inevitable that user details may need updating if they have been entered incorrectly on set-up, or simply changed over time.

 We've updated the Administer role permissions, so it is more convenient for you to self-manage your user-base with the ability to edit the email address and name fields for learners from the Edit User pop-up. 

Note:  You can only change the email address of a user if its associated with your company domain and you need to be the Administrator across all portals they access to do that.

This update applies to Admins, who can also elect for Content Managers to have the same permissions. Read the how to docs here. 

Check-out our What's new Guide to read about more updates!

 Explore has evolved: read about the latest release!

People who work in offices may be feeling a bit lonely these days. That’s because the number of people opting to work remotely is increasing. According to a report published by Flexjobs, 43% of workers in the United States work remotely at just part of the time. If your company outsources work to offshore companies, or simply has a global presence, you know that number increases significantly.

There are plenty of benefits to remote working. Businesses can source talent from all over the world. People who are able to work remotely are often more content and productive. There are even environmental benefits. Several companies including Dell and Xerox report a smaller carbon footprint thanks to telecommuting. 

There are also undeniable challenges. When a business has a distributed workforce, how do they maintain the level of cooperation, collaboration, and communication they need? How do they contend with different cultures? Even time zones can be an issue.

Centralization and continuity are key to success. By having apps and other tools in common, remote teams can establish the cohesive relationships they need. Here, we’ll go over the importance of these, common concerns, and some tools to help.

Ensuring that communication contributes to success

MaryAnne Ilfrey is a large projects coordinator for TopWritersReview. She heads up teams of writers and editors distributed across the globe. She says, “At the start of every major product we emphasize the importance of regular communication. This has been key in our ability to successfully close out important projects for our clients smoothly and efficiently. Keeping everyone on the same page ensures fewer misunderstandings.”

Cultural understanding is important when projects involve workers from multiple places

 Teams are now more culturally diverse than ever. Because remote work brings people together from all over the world, people working together on the same project may come from starkly different backgrounds. While ethnic, religious, and other forms of diversity are wonderful, success depends on Cultural literacy and understanding.

All of the above is true for people who work in offices together. With remote teams, it’s even more so. That’s why respect and understanding are so important. Cultural differences, without understanding, can lead to issues with communication and friction between team members.

Some managers admit, for example, that Americans tend to be a bit bold. They believe in being direct and putting conflicts out on the table to be worked through and solved. That can be a problem if they are working with people from a culture that values the concept of saving face, or that takes a more subtle approach to conflict.

There are several things that managers can do to help. The first is to encourage people to come to them with questions and concerns, then be able to address those concerns with knowledge and sensitivity. Another is to encourage friendly relationships among team members. Cultural misunderstandings happen, but when the people involved have an underlying trust and respect for one another.

Communicate more often than you think you need

I don’t need to get into a lot of detail.

We can cover these points later if we need to.

There are plenty of excuses to delay or skip communicating with others. The problem with this is that with distributed teams, often working across time zones, communication is already a challenge. It’s always better to err on the side of communication overkill than not. Think of it like this, whatever it is you are working on, somebody in an entirely different region may have to pick that up and run with it. 

Enabling teams to collaborate regardless of location

What is the biggest difficulty teams face when multiple people, in multiple locations must work cooperatively on the same parts of a project? When people work hard on something, they take ownership of that. When others make changes, they get territorial. Keeping change logs that focus on the benefits to the client and the project as a whole helps track changes. 

Team building can be a challenge when team members are scattered across the globe. There are no weekly happy hours. It’s virtually impossible to plan any sort of get together either. What teams can do is find ways to connect without meeting face to face. For example, you can have meetings twice each quarter via Skype that all of your associates and freelancers are invited to attend. It’s a bit of a get to know you session. Yes, it’s a bit corny at first, but once everyone loosens up a bit, it really turns into a positive thing.

Conclusion: tools to make remote teams more successful

Helping remote teams collaborate successfully is a real challenge. To succeed, you need great management, understanding, and people who are willing to work together. Fortunately, there are some tools that can help.