Hybrid or remote work is a new normal in the business world. Yet, many managers have the same problem: How to manage a remote team?
Remote workers love flexibility and reduced commuting expenses when working from home. It seems that remote work is good for employees’ both physical and mental health.
It comes with a variety of benefits, such as spending more time with your family, improved mental health, and stronger job satisfaction. However, only effective remote management can unlock these benefits. In this article, we will explore the key components and helpful tools for successful leadership in a remote setting.
What is Remote Team Management?
Teams used to be coworkers sitting in the same room or even at the same desk, doing their tasks together. Remote teams are still doing their tasks together. However, they may be sitting in different cities, countries, or even continents.
The essence of how to manage a remote team means coordinating daily tasks and communicating efficiently. In the case of remote work, communication takes place thanks to a variety of digital tools that bring remote team members together.
Remote workers are much more likely to get distracted (children, pets, TV, snacks…). Also, building personal relationships in a remote team is much harder. These difficulties are precisely what makes managing remote teams so hard at times. How to encourage team members to work together on complex tasks if they never even met?
Managing virtual teams requires smart leadership, effective communication, and strong project management skills. Besides, technology is the modern manager’s best friend, particularly in a remote environment. Various tools can help you:
communicate
collaborate
monitor
engage
encourage social interactions and
share information in a remote setting.
Building a Strong Remote Team Culture
Experienced managers and human resources professionals will agree that building a solid team culture is vital for remote teams. At the same time, building one is a common challenge for all remote teams. Here is why team culture matters and what value it can bring to your team.
Fostering a Sense of Community
Social interaction is not easy in a remote environment. In-person interactions and small talk around the water cooler are not frequent anymore.
Instead, remote workplaces generate a sense of community through interactions that take place during video conferencing and in online spaces for collaboration. Various digital tools and even hardware solutions come in very handy here. They will ensure your team members feel like they know each other even if they rarely get to shake hands.
Promoting Inclusivity and Diversity
Great remote managers adopt inclusivity and diversity as key values for their distributed teams. If teammates value each other, they are more likely to develop a sense of belonging. In such a surrounding, employees will feel free to express themselves, exchange ideas, and be creative.
Here are some tips for encouraging feedback and diversity while managing remote teams:
provide regular and anonymous feedback options, such as virtual suggestion boxes
organize regular meetings and check-ins
using inclusive communication tools if needed (i.e., to support accessibility, you may opt for closed captioning during video calls or a screen reader)
practice and encourage active listening and valuing opposed viewpoints
encourage diversity in leadership as among employees themselves.
Managing Remote Employees
When both managers and team members work from home, there are several points to pay special attention to when managing virtual teams.
Providing Regular Feedback and Coaching
In a remote work environment, managers need to provide regular and constructive feedback. Otherwise, they risk their employees feeling left out and even lonely.
Describing the components of human communication, professor Albert Mehrabian from the University of California came up with a 7% – 38% – 55% rule. According to him, only 7% of the message is what we say. A staggering 55% of the message is conveyed by body language and 38% by the tone of our voice.
It is vital to keep this formula in mind when providing feedback to remote teams. Remember that your remote team members don’t have an opportunity to see your facial expressions and posture. Also, they often don’t get to hear the tone of your voice as you say something.
Therefore, friendly and open communication is everything. To keep communication as complete as possible, video calls are strongly recommended. Especially so for more complex tasks or training sessions.
Managing Performance and Productivity
The true art of remote management is in the balance between proactive involvement and the ability to set boundaries. Your team members need to keep their autonomy.
Regular check-ins are good and even desirable, as they show your interest and support.
However, messaging or calling too often might come off as pushy. It might be perceived as micromanaging, which is something that can frustrate people working remotely. For your team to perform and collaborate virtually, they need to know you trust them.
But at the same time, you need to know they are doing a good job. How to manage a remote team and avoid micromanaging?
Using digital tools such as WebWork might come very handy in achieving this goal. WebWork’s features combine classic communication channels (team chats and video conferencing) with a variety of productivity tracking features. For example, you can choose some or all of the following options:
track your team members’ productivity by analyzing their online activities
track their timing: working hours, schedules, days off, etc.
monitor each employee’s specific tasks and real-time progress, get reports, and more.
With WebWork, you’ll be able to monitor your team’s progress without violating their privacy. Moreover, it’s a handy tool for tracking the success of new hires. Set clear expectations, remove ambiguity from communication, and avoid potential misunderstandings.
“Honey, I’m always home!”: Effective Communication Strategies
In general, professional communication must be based on clear rules. Such rules typically define which methods of communicating are acceptable and which are not. In the case of managing remote employees, however, the importance of clarity can’t be stressed enough.
Overcommunicating in a Remote Team
Employees in remote roles need precise, unambiguous, and direct instructions from you. A poorly written sentence can cause a lot of misunderstandings. Resolving those misunderstandings can be costly – both in terms of time and resources. Thus, it is best to avoid them.
In addition, teams managed remotely need consistent updates on any relevant news. This means that you will need to exchange a variety of information – texts, images, and videos. And you will need to exchange them with your team members all the time.
Therefore, using various communication channels ensures everybody is on the same page at any given moment. Regular team chats and video team meetings are preconditions for the success of any remote team.
Using Technology to Facilitate Communication
Clearly, technology is what makes collaboration happen where there’s no physical proximity. There are many digital tools that enable a variety of remote employees’ activities.
Team meetings, open discussions, problem-solving, and even learning and gaining new skills – there is an app out there to facilitate each of these activities.
These tools may include but are not limited to:
project management tools,
instant messaging apps,
file sharing and collaboration platforms,
video conferencing software, and more.
As remote teams need to see you as often as possible to remain connected, having a functional and intuitive virtual meetings tool is pivotal.
Resolving Performance Issues
Inevitably and unfortunately, performance issues happen. How do you mitigate that?
First of all, you need to spot such issues as soon as possible, before they escalate. To do that, you must keep close track of your team members’ (mal)performance. Again, digital tools are the least intrusive and most efficient way to detect bottlenecks.
Such tools will also help you address issues. The statistics and metrics offered by such apps will enable you to understand the problem. Once understood, you will be able to react in line with your team members’ work preferences.
Some tools might even suggest best practices to resolve issues. Finally, digital tools may even provide excellent communication channels to train and coach your direct reports working remotely.
Providing Support and Resources
Remote work can be hard because remote colleagues are often in different time zones. For this reason, they may not be available in times of urgency.
Providing Resources and Support for Remote Workers
Asynchronous communication is a natural condition of remote work. Since people live and work in different time zones, some messages may need time to reach the recipients.
Making sure your team has access to proper resources, adequate training, and smart tools at all times is an important element of managing remote teams.
For example, AI-based tools may provide 24/7 support for frequent problems. Furthermore, uploading resources with FAQs and instructions may provide support even when people are offline. Thus, creating a comprehensive support system for all remote employees is vital for all teams operating remotely.
Fostering a Culture of Well-Being
When managing remote teams, taking care of remote employees’ well-being should be one of the manager’s primary concerns. There is nothing you can get from an overworked, frustrated, and depressed employee. After all, we are all human beings, and that needs to come before everything else.
Prioritizing your direct reports’ mental and physical health is not only ethical. It is also sound from the business perspective. According to the Harvard Business Review, businesses lose up to $190 billion annually due to workplace burnout. Thus, being a great remote manager means detecting burnout symptoms quickly and reacting properly. Acting like that will benefit of both the employees and the company.
Here are some of the reasons why people get burnout at work:
Too many hours worked
The manager hasn’t set clear expectations regarding what is expected of the employee and what are criteria for career progression
Lack of communication and dysfunctional workplace atmosphere
No collaboration or social support
Skipping vacation
Again, digital tools often have features that may detect and warn you about such issues. For example, the previously mentioned WebWork app supports work-life balance features. This can be helpful for both employees and managers. How does WebWork support your distributed team’s well-being, you ask? WebWork allows them to set various reminders – to drink water, stretch, or simply take a break.
On the other hand, any dedicated manager trusts factual data and reports. Make sure to keep track of the employees who are overworking or underworking. Create an action plan to address the issues causing burnout or dissatisfaction among employees.
For example, you should create virtual wellness sessions or mental health awareness campaigns. These activities contribute to collective well-being. Checking in with underworked employees is just as important as mitigating burnout. Create a safe space for open conversation to understand what is keeping your personnel behind.
Measuring Success and Evaluating Performance
In order to make informed decisions and achieve goals, remote managers need to constantly evaluate the team’s performance.
Setting Metrics for Success
Successfully managing remote teams means defining clear key performance indicators (KPIs). Regularly checking if each team member’s performance is on a good track is a must.
WebWork has productivity analytics that help track team progress on various projects.
Evaluating Remote Team Performance
Great remote managers know that nothing can replace one-on-one discussions. Therefore, regular performance reviews and feedback loops are indispensable for a healthy working atmosphere. They are particularly precious for new hires and their professional and personal development.
Conclusion
Learning how to manage a remote team is not an easy task. Managers have to build a management style around flexibility and compassion, while also setting clear ground rules.
On the one hand, direct reports need autonomy. On the other, managers need to keep track of their employees’ progress. Moreover, there is also the context of asynchronous communication. This means managers need to respect all team members’ communication preferences.
Luckily, managers have technology and various remote work tools at their disposal. These tools are there to provide analytics and a variety of communication channels. These features are vital for optimizing all remote team’s performance.
Sign up for WebWork’s free trial and see what it can do for your team’s performance and digital well-being.
