A large number of companies have shifted to hiring remote teams. One reason is that employees working remotely are 47% more productive than those in the office setting.
However, managing remote teams isn’t as easy as it appears. You have to juggle between office chores and often communicate to make sure the process runs smoothly.
While we have seen managers and team leads manage teams with keen interest, they still fail to control things. None of that will happen to you, though, since you have landed on this blog post.
Today, we’ll highlight 9 effective tips for managing remote teams. It is based on real-life experiences and pains that became a bottleneck.
So, let’s take a look at the tips so you can manage your remote team effortlessly.
9 Effective Tips for Managing Remote Teams
Facing the Challenges with Patience
Patience is the first key you need to have – especially if it’s your first time managing remote teams. In remote handling, you might have to face multiple challenges. However, you need to be optimistic and patient.
Some common challenges that you would have to deal with patiently are:
Lack of FaceTime with Coworkers and Supervisors
Remote working has a different mode, and there are no daily face-to-face meetups. Everything is held over software or through email. This might create a hindrance between you and your remote team. However, you can set up a video call fortnightly or once a month for face interaction.
Timing Difference
One gap between managing remote teams and working onsite is the timing difference. Mostly, you hire remote teams from around the globe. So, a significant note here is that you will definitely have a timing gap.
Sometimes, it’d be their sleeping time while still being morning in your region. Although employees agree to work on the specified time, this still can create friction. Make sure to cooperate a bit in that regard.
Internet Issues
Your company provides internet to the employees when they work in the office setting. However, the employee himself pick an internet service provider and the speed of the internet. In most cases, it might not match your internet speed, or the server might go down someday.
Here you will need quite a lot of patience and understanding of the employee’s situation. We don’t insist on being lenient as it becomes a regular practice. But stay calm in a few emergencies or unexpected situations.
Surrounding Distractions
Pin drop silence – while this strategy may apply to your office environment, the outlook inside the home is different. That said, you might hear your employee’s baby screaming from next door. You need to be understanding and avoid these distractions while continuing with the meetings.
Set Clear Expectations
Expecting efficiency from your employee on the basis of his past experience with a company might be a wrong judgment. When a remote worker joins your team or company, set a clear expectation for him.
Tell him that a specific result is expected from him. Include also that these are the policies and guidelines of the company, and they should follow them.
These guidelines and expectations can also include the meeting timetable, response time, and project reporting. Remember, every guideline delivered verbally should also be present in a written form in a document.
The document must have clear instructions of do’s and don’t’s and company policy. In the future, if the employee disagrees with it, you can show him the written document to convince him.
Trust Them for Easy Management
With daily interaction and sharing the same settings, you resonate with the employees in the office. However, that’s a bit challenging when managing remote teams.
You have no idea what they are up to, their background, and everything in between. Since you connect and team up better physically, you might find it difficult to develop a trust factor for your remote worker.
Although it might take some time to amalgamate with him and develop trust, give them a chance. There’s a high probability that the individual will perform his level best, meeting and exceeding your expectations.
Take note that companies who want to grow must have trust development in the long run. It’s trust that gives employees the freedom to involve their creativity and perform better.
Access to the Premium Tools
There’s more than a headset and laptop your company need to provide to the hired remote teams. One of the primary needs for managing remote teams is access to tools your company uses.
Depending on the role you have hired a remote worker for, the requirements of the tool differ. For instance, a content writer will need access to Grammarly Premium. While an SEO specialist will particularly need keyword-finding tools like Ahrefs or SEMrush.
Besides these paid tools, you will also need to provide them access to a few primary tools like Slack for instant messaging and Zoom for video calls. So, they don’t ping you for the login details while getting the work on board.
Stay in Touch with Your Remote Team
We really mean it when we say stay in touch with your remote team. No matter how far, the hired remote talent is part of your company.
As a manager, you must engage with them and keep them in the loop. Contact them daily and if you stay occupied enough or have multiple tasks running at your disposal, ask them you get back to you.
Not only will this help you in building relationships but monitoring the progress of the employee. Additionally, they will also feel engaged and valuable.
However, this tip isn’t applicable to every role you have hired a remote talent for. Some roles, like content writer, might need a daily checkup. While the others, for instance, website developers, might not need daily meetings or exchange of words.
Make sure to use other modes of communication than video calling. This includes emailing, messaging – or simply allowing phone calls. If you leave your employees unanswered or unchecked, they might feel left out or disengaged.
Focus on Outputs Rather than Hours
As discussed above, there are a lot of distractions when working from home. Sometimes they have their kids cuddling while they leave their chairs to use the restroom.
In that case, employees are sometimes not at their desks. Many managers get offended by this. Their main motive for managing remote teams is to make them sit on their chairs rather than focus on outputs.
Avoid doing this to your employees – if you are already practicing it for one reason or other. This will piss them off, and they might consider walking out of the contract.
Instead, keep a check up on their performance and the results they are driving. Is their task for the day completed? Is he coordinating with the entire team properly? If yes, appreciate his work.
Keep Things Transparent
It’s very important to keep things transparent between you and your employees when managing remote teams. You should discuss every opinion and the feedback the high authorities have about him.
Keep your relationship crystal clear and share the company’s value. If you do it, your team members will follow the trait. Make sure you are treating every employee with the same equality and being transparent.
Strong and One-on-One Communication
Working from home does make you feel lonely at the end of the day. With loads of work and no setting to get yourself cheered up, your employees might feel burned out.
One thing you can do to make them feel good about their job is doing one on one communication. Try to arrange it once a week.
Call every employee in your remote team members collectively. This will allow them to mingle with each other and share their thoughts.
Share feedback in this meeting. Or, you can simply exchange thoughts on routines and make them feel lighter.
Let Them Put Their Insights
Employees feel happy when they are allowed to showcase their creativity in the company and particular projects. Give them a free hand to use it and discuss their ideas.
Involve them rather than giving them the order to accomplish a task. Ask for their insight on a particular project and demand a suitable solution.
Not only their fresh ideas can benefit your outlook, but they bring a change you’d be ever looking forward to. This will also unleash their talent and help you grow and evolve as a cutting-edge company.
Conclusion
Managing remote teams is a tricky job and can burn you out. However, the right tips can keep you from mismanagement and help you keep running the system smoothly.
Today, we discussed 9 tips for remote team management. You must be patient enough to tackle the situation since the situation will pop out of nowhere – at least in the beginning.
Other than that, set clear expectations in the eye of your remote team, give them access to premium tools, stay in continuous touch, and build strong one-on-one communications.
Focusing on output, keeping things transparent, and letting your remote team put their insight will also help you managing remote teams easily.
