Remote work has been on the rise in recent years, and more and more professionals choose to ditch the 9-to 5 office jobs for the flexibility of working from home or anywhere in the world.
If you want to be a successful remote employee, you need to possess a set of skills that go beyond simply being good at the job you’re hired to do.
Let’s have a look at the seven skills you should possess if you want to succeed in this type of position.
1. Time management
When you work from home or as a digital nomad, you don’t have coworkers and managers physically near you to remind you to remain focused and meet your deadlines. Companies that build remote teams are looking for independent workers who can be responsible for managing their time on their own.
If you’re consistently late and not very good at tracking the time, remote work likely isn’t for you. Time management takes mental preparation, so if you want to attend online meetings on time and meet your deadlines, it’s essential to prepare yourself mentally to do so.
2. Communication
When you have a remote position, it’s a completely different environment than a regular office. You don’t get to interact face-to-face with your coworkers or attend meetings in a conference room. Moreover, you don’t have the type of social interaction people who work traditional 9-to-5 jobs in an office have. You also can’t simply walk into your manager’s office to ask for clarification on a project.
Because of all these obstacles, strong communication skills are essential if you want to work remotely. Successful remote workers rely on communicating with their leaders and team members to complete projects and build positive company culture. There’s no way someone with poor communication skills is going to be a successful remote employee.
3. Collaboration
Being able to collaborate with team members on a project is vital in any kind of company, but particularly in remote ones. Since you only have the Internet to communicate with your manager or other team members, it’s essential to possess the skills to collaborate with other people efficiently.
If you’re not already familiar with chat software such as Slack, time management tools, videoconferencing tools and project management tools such as Asana, it’s time to get started. If you struggle to collaborate efficiently with your team, remote work may not be for you.
4. Organization
When you work remotely, there’s no one to look over your shoulder to see if you’re staying on top of your tasks. This means that you need to find ways to keep yourself on track. Whether you start using project management tools such as Asana, Trello, or Basecamp, or devise your own strategy, it’s important to keep organized to make sure that you need all your deadlines.
Keeping everything coordinated while working from home may be difficult, especially if you have family responsibilities as well. Try to separate your work life from family life as much as possible. This will not only boost your productivity but will also improve your quality of life.
5. Tech skills
No matter what type of job you are doing remotely, even if it’s not specifically a technical one, it’s essential to feel comfortable with both hardware and software as a remote worker.
The company you’re working for needs to know that you can manage on your own without the help of an IT department. Make sure you’re familiar with all the software the team is using, perhaps by following some tutorials. Technical proficiency is a must as a remote worker, whether your job is to create websites or be a virtual assistant.
6. Resourcefulness
Successful remote employees ask lots of questions in order to make sure they understand exactly what is expected from them, but they also figure out where to find the answers.
If you want to be successful as a remote employee, you need to be ready to improve your skills by finding three online tutorials for attending training sessions without being asked to.
You should also be someone who’s ready to ask their network if they’ve ever had faced a similar challenge and do your best to find answers on your own were also not being afraid to ask for help.
Being proactive is important for any job, but more so for remote workers, because it offers them a chance to stand out and adapt to any new challenges.
7. Being time conscious
As a remote worker, you’ll probably be working in a different time zone than some or all your team members. As such, it’s essential to be aware of time zone differences. Remote working sometimes makes it challenging to know what your coworkers are doing at any given time, so make sure you are sensitive about emailing them at odd hours.
Try to include dates and time zones for all the meetings you’re suggesting, and also make sure that you respect the time limits set when collaborating with a team member located in a different time zone. This helps with building great interpersonal relations and also helps with productivity.
Whether you are a full-time remote worker or are just telecommuting for a couple of days a week, it’s crucial to master a range of skills that help you become a better employee. The seven skills above are expected from any remote employee, so do your best to polish them as needed to boost your remote working career.
Search Remotely is a multifaceted platform that enables remote workers to thrive and employers to be able to tap into our existing pool of international remote talent and help scale up their remote teams efficiently.
