Working for a remote teams is a great way to combine the benefits of the best of both worlds, but before you can lead and manage your remote teams, you’ll need to learn how to overcome some of these common challenges.
Remote work is a growing trend, with people from all over the world working for companies worldwide. It doesn’t matter where you live or where your employer is located. You have to know how to manage this type of team.
Here are five best tips for leading and managing teams that may be spread worldwide. I have compiled our best tips for leading and managing remote teams, and we hope they enable you to work more efficiently and effectively.
1. Understand What Makes Remote Work Effective
Remote work is becoming increasingly common all over the world. It can be tough to manage a remote team, but in many cases, it can offer amazing benefits for all parties involved. Before you start managing your remote team, it’s important that you fully understand how and why remote work works.
Leading and managing remote teams is one of those tasks in which it’s easy to see the value but can be hard to get the hang of it. Be mindful of when and how information is shared within your company.
2. Create Expectations for Communication and Regular Check-Ins.
Ensure you’re discussing responsibilities and reporting with your remote workers before you start working with them.
One of the biggest challenges for remote teams is ensuring they’re 100% focused on their work during work hours, and setting up expectations can help here. In addition to setting expectations, it’s also incredibly important to ensure that your remote workers feel connected to your company culture, even if they are working in a different office than everyone else.
Here are Some Important Things to Make Sure You’re Doing:
Set expectations and create a structure that works with remote employees’ schedules.
When you manage your team remotely, follow the tips to communicate your expectations properly.
Follow Some Tips to Make Expectations.
Be practical: Realistic expectations will set you and your business up for success. Take possible and limited scopes until it comes to implementation.
Prepare a document: Sharing your expectations with your team over a video call is not enough. Prepare a document which can be followed for great results. It also works as a reminder.
Think widely: Collect the experience of other remote employees and learn the situation to influence your expectations, which helps to avoid some issues and struggles to maintain performance.
Organize Regular Check-Ins Between Your Remote Workers and You.
Ensure your team stays connected to company culture through shared channels like Slack, Trello, or other tools. Make certain that everyone is checking in regularly. It is something that’ll make a huge difference for your remote workers.
3. Give Them the Time and Space
Supporting your remote teams is hard work! To help them succeed, go through the below points
- Schedule regular check-ins (at least once a day). This way, you’ll be able to understand their workday better.
- Help them organize their work and ensure they’re not stuck on one thing for too long.
- Give them your full attention when you do have a discussion or meet in person. It would help to treat your remote workers exactly like you treat those in your office.
- Use video conferencing and screen-sharing tools to keep everyone on the same page. If you’re using meeting platforms, ensure they offer video conferencing tools – that way, your remote workers can see what’s happening. It’ll help them feel as involved as they were in office!
4. Create a Working Environment That’s Productive and Conducive to Success
To make sure that your remote workers feel successful and supported.
Here are a Few Things to Consider
- Make certain that your remote teams know their goals so that they can work toward them. It will help them be more productive and less likely to get sidelined by other things.
- Make sure you’re giving your remote workers the same resources and support as you do for your on-site team members. If you don’t, you’ll have a harder time motivating your remote team members!
- As a manager or business owner, you must be prepared to be around your team even when they aren’t in your location! While being a remote leader can be challenging, it’s not impossible. You have to make sure that everyone is communicating clearly and that everyone feels involved.
To Make Them Done, Follow the Given Tips:
- Set up regular check-ins with each of your remote workers. It is something that’ll take some time to get used to it. But it’ll be worth your effort as soon as you see results.
- Make sure your remote team members know how to set up and use Skype for meetings, screen sharing, and video conferencing. If you’re unfamiliar with these tools, this will take some time to get used to—but it’ll make all the difference in the world!
5. Weekly Team Meetings and Regular Communications
- Use business communication tools that help keep your teams in sync while working remotely. Remote employees should have easy access to important information and conversations on their team’s projects all day- even during their downtime.
- Lead by example. Build relationships with your remote employees and give them the tools to work effectively and efficiently.
- Manage your day-to-day team management from your computer. Don’t let the appearance of distance get in the way of that simple truth – you’re still responsible for your team’s performance and productivity.
- Stay in touch with remote employees regularly, even if some days may be busy for both of you. Check in with remote employees to ensure they’re doing well, are enjoying their time at work, and have any questions or concerns they have addressed by their colleagues on dedicated channels such as Slack or a private email thread (if your company uses email).
- Schedule weekly meetings and have cool discussions.