In many cases, in order to stay competitive, companies had to think of how to stay within budget while optimizing their business processes. Offshoring allows businesses to hire professionals and get the work done at a significantly reduced cost.
There are many benefits for moving functions offshore besides reducing business costs:
- accelerated business growth from reinvesting freed-up funds
- gives global access to a vast pool of professional talents
- focus on business development
- exercise more control by having a dedicated core group of staff
- allows businesses to run practically all-day and all-night thanks to time zone differentials
Although offshoring brings with it many benefits, it has its own distinct set of challenges if not managed properly—enough to deter some organizations from implementing an offshore program.
One consistent question for implementing offshore teams is “How do I get my offshore team to deliver to expectations every time consistently?” For many organizations, this is a major source of frustration because this is very hard to do.
However, there are two key factors that you need to know and understand well if you’re going to manage your offshore team.
Be Clear with Your Expectations and Track Goals
Be super clear with the expectations and goals and make sure that the team are aware of those.
An offshore team can do and be all kinds of wonderful but unfortunately, they can’t read minds. When the team knows what is expected of them, they are more able, and more likely, to deliver according to expectations.
Agreeing with specific goals gives you a framework for measuring performance and allows you to easily assess their progress.
Setting up goals also gives motivation and confidence to your remote employees when these expectations are met.
Communicate Effectively
Poor communication is a major factor in the breakdown of outsourcing relationships, but a proper communication strategy helps knit a team together—motivating staff to come up with new ideas and work efficiently.
Make sure that the team knows what channels they should use to communicate with you and each other—email, Slack, Hangouts, Whatsapp, to name a few. Focus on the communication tools that would suit the messages and the needs of your team. Determine if a team instant messaging tool like Slack would be ideal for quick messages and watercooler-type chat.
Timely communication is also valuable. Setting communication time-frames (e.g. emails should be responded to within 24 hours) help bring balance between spammed inboxes or employees that are off-the-radar. This allows either party to reply in a more convenient time.
Reward achievements
Offshoring means that the traditional rewards and recognition style might need to have some adjustments to suit the demands of a remote workspace.
Frequent recognition makes sure that your offshore team feels remembered and can raise team morale. Acknowledge business results and give feedback. When an employee takes initiative or exceeds expectations, you’re sure that a message that specifically points out their accomplishment would be appreciated. What you’ll find are talented individuals who stay with your team.
