Managing a remote team can be a daunting task for even the most experienced leaders. In a time of constant change, being able to motivate your team, and ensuring the quality of their work, while building a positive and strong remote work culture is a massive challenge.
The key to building and managing high-performing teams, whether remote or onsite, is to focus on creating a positive team culture of accountability, creativity and collaboration. With companies already seeing the long-term benefits of remote work and planning to extend 'work from home' even after the pandemic, here are the best practices for transforming your remote workforce into high-performing teams and empowering them to succeed.
1. Stay Aligned On All Goals & Targets
It is critical that your employees, regardless of their roles or functions, understand your organization’s ultimate goals and their part in helping the team achieve these. This helps your employees know exactly what they are working towards and plan accordingly while emphasizing on their outcomes rather than tasks. Employees also need to find meaning in their work to stay motivated, so it's incredibly important for leaders to circle back to these objectives.
The biggest mistake that companies are making is that they are just assigning tasks to their teams without defining the future vision right away. As the result, team members have no clear direction or understanding of why they are performing these tasks. Having a clear ‘why’ will allow your employees to take ownership and come up with creative ways to get to the desired outcomes.
2. Have An Effective Remote Work Policy in Place
Successful companies have introduced or updated their remote work policy to keep the workforce informed and empowered. Your remote work policy should clearly define the team's scheduled meetings, operational guidelines, and expectations to take away as many of the unknowns as possible. This may also include organizational charts, an outline of performance expectations, an equipment checklist, performance tools, available cultural development resources to avoid any sort of remote work isolation, and burnout prevention tips.
A remote work policy will enable the teams to remain disciplined even if they are working from the comfort of their homes. It will keep your employees happy, content, and healthy, while making them more productive.
3. Equip Your Team with the Right Tools
Without a digital infrastructure, your team will not attain full productivity. Since everything has moved online, you need to provide the team with reliable apps and software as well as clear procedures for all work-related activities, from assigning tasks, reviewing work, chats, calls, collaboration, etc., so they can be performed effectively and efficiently.
4. Train Your Team on Remote Work Skills
Training and development are crucial in sustaining a self-managed and empowered workforce. Make sure you have training programs for both new hires as well as existing staff to develop a learning attitude within them. The programs may include soft skills required for remote work or an introduction to remote work tools such as video conferencing tools like Zoom, collaboration apps like Asana and Microsoft Teams, and more.
Since communication will be held online, teaching soft skills like video call etiquette, communication skills, etc., is also essential. The goal is to commit your team to long-term learning.
5. Engage and Communicate
Working remotely means your team is at a high risk of experiencing isolation. Remote work also brings many communication challenges. As a rule of thumb, leaders should:
Over-communicate rather than under-communicate
Communicate via phone call and video call when written communication gets confusing
Check in with your team individually to determine whether they need any support
Get to know how the teams are doing and feeling about their responsibilities and deliverables
Encourage your employees to share their views, opinions, and ideas
Give your staff the freedom to collaborate to solve problems without you
Project Management Tool Examples:
Asana
Basecamp
Microsoft Project
Smartsheet
Teamwork
Trello
Wrike
Zoho Projects
It takes a lot more to foster a connection between the employees and the company, particularly when working remotely. It takes rethinking, intention, and mindfulness of how your team works together. A great distributed team can cultivate a winning culture but for this, you will need to establish a few measures.
For starters, make sure you set a foundation of psychological safety and trust that is characterized by mutual respect and open communication as well as ensure your team has all the right tools and resources to succeed in their roles. In addition, being explicit in your work policy helps your remote team understand the expectations and boundaries from the get-go. Lastly, establish regular rituals such as weekly group meetings and regular one-on-one catchups with your direct reports allowing everyone to stay aligned on priorities while strengthening personal relationships within your team.
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