8 Proven Ways To Work With Offshore Teams Smoothly

1. Develop a communication system

Make sure your offshore team and your in-house team is using the same communication tools. Whether your primary choice of communication is via email or chat, give both the teams the same information and directive. In case of a meeting, inform your offshore team whether they should be prepared for voice calls or video conferences. In a few cases, there may be teams with cultural differences or some degree of language barriers. To avoid conflict and miscommunication, managers must ensure that everyone is on the same page.

2. Understand your team’s needs

How often you must be communicating with your offsite employees? Must conduct weekly check-ins or monthly meetings? Is there a specific project head with whom I need to collaborate all the time? It is obvious that you may have some questions that you should consider when figuring out your team’s needs. Stay cautious not to adopt the “out of sight, out of mind” approach! Reach out with status updates regularly and give them confidential feedback forms where they can give you an opportunity to sought out problems, clarify some concerns, and offer suggestions. Never forget to make sure that their voice is heard.

3. Think about the time

Time zones create a notable impact on work collaboration. In most cases, your offshore team may not advocate the same time zone as yours. This can be seen in companies based in the U.S. with outsourced partners in Asia. Be aware of when you message the team within and beyond your working location’s office hours. If your offshore team needs to join a meeting that is scheduled in your time zone, you must let them know weeks in advance. You must follow the same procedure for projects that must be handled by different people working in different locations.

4. Set and manage expectations

From the start, you must be able to identify and define the roles clearly. You must have an idea about the responsibilities, and priorities of your offshore team to minimize blunders and failed expectations. You must ensure that you have project briefs that communicate the scope of work that needs to be done, specific dates and deadlines that need to be met, and more.

Letting your offshore members work too autonomously, may allow them to feel lost in some of their tasks. It’s still important to deliver them a sense of direction so that they know what you’re asking for.

5. Set ample time for training

You must have a clear understanding of the processes and ways of doing things for the company. Conduct online training sessions via video calls so that it will allow you to educate your offshore team “face-to-face”. Not being able to personally train your employees could define longer training times, but try not to skip this step, it will be more efficient for the company in the long run.

6. They must be treated like your in-house team

Your offshore team is a global extension of your company and it is important to make them feel so. Try to include them in company-wide announcements, inform them of the company’s plans, and let them know that you also value their professional growth. This treatment will make them feel more open in expressing concerns and bringing out ideas that all boils down to better productivity.

7. Share Detailed Feedback and tips to improve

The feedback given on the work of your offshore team should be targeted at certain actionable issues, and not general. It should be specifically implied to a particular concern or a point of action. Such two-way feedback based on mutual trust will help in building a great relationship and boosting team performance.

8. Manage the workflow

No matter where work is done, it is your responsibility and you have absolutely no excuse not to have some type of workflow management solution in place.