This year has brought about a series of rapid and radical changes to the way many of us work. Business leaders across the globe have had to adapt to remote working and tackle the challenges of keeping teams organised and connected across various locations and time zones.

Additionally, many businesses - regardless of size or sector - have had to reassess and pivot existing company goals in reaction to the crisis. In fact, a new survey from Asana reveals 45% of organisations across the globe say their company goals have changed at least once since working remotely.

This combination of dispersed and distributed teams alongside a change of focus for an organisation could very easily be chaotic and have a negative impact on employee engagement and output. It’s more important than ever for companies to find a way to outline these new goals and focuses and bring together individuals and teams to drive towards them.

Below are some top tips on how to best build, communicate and galvanise teams towards company-wide goals - no matter where they’re working from:

• Build a team: Too often people are grouped together to form a ‘team’ but have little to no opportunities to foster effective working relationships.Instead, promote a team environment based on trust, where members are encouraged to contribute ideas and openly question the team and its activities without fear of censorship. These relationships are the bedrock for the team to successfully achieve collective goals.
• Highlight the bigger picture: Providing greater transparency and showing employees their role in contributing toward larger missions helps individuals become empowered to take accountability for the work they’re completing.Only one-quarter (26%) of employees have a clear understanding of how their individual work relates to their company’s goals.
  Rectifying this can really add meaning to the “why” behind By aligning on company goals and informing employees how they contribute, team members are empowered to take accountability for the work they’re completing.
• Empty your inbox: Now’s the perfect time to reassess the tools you use. Email is by far the most used tool for tracking goals in companies globally, with over half (53%) of businesses favouring this method.But keeping tabs on various emails and those that are looped in on them can often be a challenge. Instead, reduce your dependence on emails by using a work management platform, like Asana.

  Not only can these tools allow for speedy responses, but it also enables work and discussion around individual, team and corporate goals to be set, tracked and managed in one centralised place. Your team will save time by keeping everyone in the loop and eliminating the need for people to go back through email threads to dig up a task.

• Start small: It can be easy to get carried away and set record-breaking goals for yourself and your team. But starting small can often be a more winning strategy, as you’ll save your team the “crashing and burning” feeling when you're unable to meet those high targets.This will have a demoralising impact on staff. Instead, set achievable goals that can be accomplished in a manageable time frame, with a weekly reminder to revisit your progress.

With team members separated by distance, maintaining teamship and communication around company-goals is increasingly important. To achieve this, organisations need to create a culture of transparency and involvement that provides their workforce with a feeling of belonging and purpose.

Companies must seek out tools that help to align individuals towards goals and empower teams to take accountability for the work they’re completing, with the knowledge that it feeds into a shared mission.

It is through a collective vision of success - and both the collaboration to make it happen as a team, and the tracking of it to ensure targets are met - that fosters a driven, resilient workforce that not only survives but thrives.

Joshua Zerkel is certified professional organizer and head of global community at Asana.