In today’s business landscape, incorporating remote work trends and hiring top talent from different countries has become paramount for remaining competitive. However, this new reality also brings a challenging task for managers, as they must manage and keep their remote teams happy while ensuring project management and meeting deadlines.
Managing remote teams requires nurturing, guiding, and supporting team members who are physically not in the same place while achieving outstanding results. This article offers a quick roundup of tips to help managers successfully manage their remote teams and keep employees happier.
#1 Build a Scalable Employee Onboarding Process
To integrate new hires into your organization, your company must implement activities that allow them to acclimate to their role and learn about the organization’s structure, culture, vision, and values. When it comes to onboarding remote employees, providing a sound onboarding process that is comprehensive and lengthy is of crucial importance.
Your company’s onboarding process must be carefully planned and scalable to engage employees, establish connections between them, their managers, and teams, and create workers committed to the company’s success.
Using an Objective & Key Results (OKR) software can help employees stay synchronized and aware of their company’s strategies and objectives, which further facilitates collaboration, task execution, meeting management, and employee engagement to accomplish the desired outcomes.
#3 Set Clear Expectations Early On
Ensuring everyone knows what is expected early on is crucial for managers. Providing guidelines, establishing boundaries, and reviewing the basics are essential actions when setting out a project that a remote team should implement. Set clear expectations for work hours, communication systems, response times, key project objectives, deadlines, and virtual meeting attendance. Keeping workers up-to-date on policy and staffing changes and company successes is also crucial.
#4 Secure Productivity by Creating Structures
Remote workplaces depend on predictability and structures, and managers must create a team rhythm to ensure productivity. For instance, if employees work in different time zones, establish a rotating timetable and meeting format to ensure easy planning and efficiency. Providing a clear company organigram so employees can know what different people are doing within the company and where they fit in the process can also help secure productivity.
#5 Encourage and Embrace Diversity
Most remote teams are composed of employees from different parts of the world. As a result, managers must embrace cultural diversity, be open to receiving feedback, and promote a mindset of respecting and celebrating differences among team members. Misunderstandings and conflicts that can divide the team frequently require patience, flexibility, and resilience from managers.
#6 Maintain Open Communication
Transparent communication is vital for remote teams. Reserve certain times of the day and inform your team that they can book short sessions with you during that period. In addition, plan one-on-one calls weekly or biweekly to follow up with team members and monitor productivity. Creating a communication strategy to ensure everyone is clear about how communication will happen within the remote team can also help maintain open communication.
#7 Treat Everyone Fairly and Equally but Recognize Excellence
Treating everyone equally and fairly builds trust, improves team morale, deepens loyalty, and stimulates productivity. However, managers should also recognize excellence to motivate others. Be deliberate about mentioning and celebrating individual successes during team meetings and one-on-one video sessions or calls.
In conclusion, successful remote team management is essential to the future of work. Understanding the challenges it brings and responding to them by implementing different tried-and-true tactics, such as those discussed above, can significantly enhance your company’s performance and productivity.
