Given that employees are located thousands of miles away, project management offshore becomes a major headache. Tracking productive work hours of offshore employees, communication, and collaboration were all hurdles that most companies struggled to cross until the emergence of technology-driven offshore outsourcing services like offshore project management software.
In this article, we shall delve into the world of offshore industries and see how offshore integrated management services can ease project management in such scenarios.
What is the offshore industry setup and how does it matter?
Traditionally, offices have followed a top-down approach where employees were hired for fixed departments and assigned specific roles or assignments. Their payments were fixed and paid weekly or monthly. They had to report to a manager who both assigned duties and evaluated the performance of the employees. This was a hierarchical and stratified work environment and often led to monotony, bureaucracy and barriers in communication between employees and bosses.
Offshore consulting brought a revolutionary change in the way that workplaces functioned and were conceived. It involves the employment of talent from across the globe, thereby radically expanding the office space. The traditional hierarchical structure cannot be sustained in an offshore setup. Although there still are team leads and managerial staff to whom employees must report, offshore work settings led to collaborations, brainstorming of ideas, and experimentation—everything that had stagnated in the traditional office setup.
Offshore office setups cannot be governed using a top-down approach and demand a flatter structure. This kind of structure benefits workplaces by allowing collaborative decision-making where all voices are heard and acknowledged. Besides, it also permits greater flexibility to the workforce. They still have deadlines which they have to meet but they can distribute work hours according to their convenience. The quality of end products is also examined but there’s no scrutiny of when the work was done as long as deadlines are met.
However, the idea that an offshore workspace does not require project management is a myth. Since it is a fairly recent development, the challenges posed by it are unique and often leave employers in the lurch. Therefore, it is always wise to invest in offshore integrated management services like online workforce management software for offshore work settings.
Benefits of workforce management software for offshore projects
Effective project management is crucial for the successful completion of projects. This includes managing human and non-human resources, budgeting, setting deadlines, and facilitating collaboration among team members. A distributed and remote workforce that characterises offshore projects makes all aforementioned aspects of project management difficult.
Here’s what software for project management offshore can do for offshore work setups.
1. Project planning: The best project management software will help managers with effective project planning for a remote workforce including the eking out of project objectives, employee roles, directives, deadlines, and asset allocation.
2. Facilitation of collaborative outlook: Effective project management software helps mitigate the biggest challenge posed by a remote offshore workforce—communication and collaboration. With tools such as video-conferencing, chat options, whiteboards, and brainstorming modules, these technological innovations can make collaborations and communication among remote employees, even across time zones, so seamless that the remote work setup will seem like an office room whose doors are always open for employees to engage with each other!
3. Time-tracking: project management software for offshore projects also comes equipped with time-tracking modules for remote employees. This non-intrusive, data-driven form of time monitoring provides employers or managerial staff with precise information regarding the productive work hours each employee is spending on the project. When employees understand that their work is being monitored, they gain more focus and waste fewer work hours, thereby leading to an increase in both employee and workplace productivity.
4. Increases accountability: Another major benefit of time-tracking software for remote employees is that it enhances their accountability to their employers. Employee loyalty and sincerity are major concerns for offshore projects; however, when employees know that their productive work hours are being monitored, it increases both sincerity and accountability.
5. Optimises human resource allocation: Managing human resources for projects requires a deep understanding of the skills and personalities of employees which is nearly impossible in offshore work setups. The best offshore project management software helps in this regard by providing data and performance metrics on each employee. This enables managers to understand which tasks each employee is struggling with and thereby helps in talent allocation to the tasks most suited to them. It also helps employers identify suitable areas of training for each employee, enabling the creation of a robust offshore workforce.
6. Enhances work-life balance: Workforce management software plays a crucial role in enhancing work-life balance for employees in offshore settings. By efficiently managing schedules, it ensures that employees have predictable and balanced work hours, reducing the stress associated with irregular shifts and excessive overtime. Additionally, this software facilitates remote work arrangements, allowing offshore workers to spend more time with their families and enjoy personal pursuits. With features such as time-off management and real-time communication tools, employees can better plan their time and maintain a healthier work-life equilibrium, ultimately leading to improved well-being and job satisfaction in the challenging context of offshore operations.
7. Performance analytics and reporting: These state-of-the-art tools not only provide data on remote employees but also robust analytics and reporting to enable comprehension of the skillsets of employees. They also provide analytics on workforce productivity, asset allocation, budgeting, and project timelines, enabling the successful completion of projects, fair payments for productive work hours spent by each employee, and leading to an overall increase in workforce productivity.
8. Scalability: As the business and its offshore assignments grow, the best remote workforce management software also grows in scale. The scalability offered by such software makes them robust and sustainable investments for your offshore projects.
Prohance makes offshore project management easy!
Now that you know all about the benefits of project management solutions for your offshore ventures, it is time to study the market for the best options available for your business. Prohance offers real-time data on workforce productivity for offshore projects, allowing you to take control of your offshore ventures with ease. Visit our website or contact us to exp
