88% of organizations encouraged or required their employees to work from home, and 74% of CFOs expressed that they intend to move some employees to a remote work arrangement permanently.
With a major portion of your team working remotely, leaders need to reconsider their team management methodologies. While the underlying factors that influence team dynamics remain unchanged, there are a few additional considerations that go with managing a team remotely.
This guide aims to help leaders understand the considerations that they need to pay attention to as they manage remote teams. As a leader, the onus to make the transition easier for your team is on you. The considerations discussed below will help you ensure you’re proactively making things easier for your team.
7 Considerations for Remote Team Management
Remote teams work in a digital environment where team dynamics tend to be different than a physical environment. This brings a unique set of challenges for the team leader. You need to proactively look for ways to communicate effectively and keep your team connected.
Your goal is to help your team be just as productive and motivated, if not more, as they would otherwise be in a physical workspace. It’s easier said than done, but not impossible. Here are the considerations you should look out for to accomplish this goal.
1. Bring the office to the members’ home
You can create a #watercooler channel on Slack and do all the weekend team calls, but that’s not going to be a good enough replication of your office environment. You need something more powerful.
Your best bet? Software.
Software can do a lot of things to help you manage your team. It provides solutions for team members at all stages, collects data, and offers insights that can help develop or maintain the company’s culture in a virtual setting.
One of the biggest benefits of employee management systems is that they can keep your employees engaged through gamifying their experiences and encourage team members to interact within themselves. Learn how other companies engage their employees today with this employee engagement guide.
2. Engage your employees
Working from home can feel lonely. Without the office banter, it’s hard to stay motivated and jump out of bed each morning for some people. However, there are several ways to keep your employees engaged in a virtual office.
For instance, your first line of defense could be perks. Employee retention can be tough, especially when companies are hiring remotely and the employees potentially have a ton of other options.
The perks don’t have to be just insurance; you want to give your employees something fun. For instance, you can use employee discounts as perks so your employees can claim gym membership discounts, free access to on-demand TV, or get some free snacks at Greggs.
You can also do weekly video calls and have an extra co-curricular hour where you play games or do activities that aren’t related to work. Maybe have a pet-day where your team shows everyone their furballs on camera. You have just one goal: make them feel part of a work family.
3. Keep everyone on the same page
Communicating with clarity is one of the biggest challenges in a remote environment. When the team is present in person, you can be there to help them when something doesn’t go as planned. However, this isn’t something you can do for a remote team.
For this reason, an employee handbook can be a great asset. You can’t support your team 24×7 in a remote environment, but you can give them a resource that illustrates processes and makes their job easier.
Of course, you’ll still need to provide instructions whenever warranted. But you’ll need to ensure that your instructions are 100 percent clear and aren’t ambiguous.
The use of project management tools is great, but simply describing tasks, in brief, can often lead to misunderstandings, especially when there are multiple members working on a task. If a task is complex, it’s best to explain the details over a call and iron out all details before the members start working on it.
4. Be mindful when sharing constructive criticism
Praising someone is always so much easier than criticizing, isn’t it? However, constructive criticism is key to growth. Even though it’s stressful, it’s important for you to provide your team with the insight you believe will add more value to their work.
Constructive criticism can get a little tricky in a remote environment because you’re not physically present with the employee. You may not be able to even look at their reaction unless you’re on a video call.
For this reason, it’s always ideal to provide constructive criticism over a video call. Not that it’s as good as face-to-face, but it’s the next best thing. You should also be mindful about how you convey the criticism. If that’s the whole agenda of the call, that’s not going to be great for an employee’s morale.
Instead, discuss several other aspects of work. Be sure to also mention things they did well, and then mention where there’s room for improvement.
5. Celebrate achievements
Celebrating achievements is just as important, if not more, than constructive criticism. There’s just one problem. Your team can’t share a pizza online. However, you can still have a virtual congratulatory meeting to celebrate a team member’s achievement.
When someone puts in the effort and helps the company achieve its goals, it’s important to acknowledge them. It makes your team members feel that their efforts are being noticed and appreciated by their leader.
Don’t give small achievements a miss either. If it doesn’t warrant a full-fledged virtual party, go for a message in the Slack channel applauding the team member. However, always be consistent. The last thing you want is for your team members to think you’re playing favorites.
6. Strive to build trust
No matter how hard you try, a team can’t function without trust. Lack of trust can put team members in a defensive mode and keep them from offering other members the support they need.
They may resort to gossiping or manipulative behavior at a colleague’s expense. It doesn’t just waste their time and energy; it also wastes the company’s resources and impacts the team’s ability to achieve its goals.
However, building trust isn’t exactly easy. Team building, acknowledging a member’s achievements, and being transparent as a team go a long way. But there’s a lot more that you, as a leader, can do to inculcate trust among your team members.
The team leader can help cultivate trust among team members by showing their vulnerable side to the team. Showing the team that their leader, too, feels intimidated at times helps you connect with them and encourages them to share their experiences as well.
You should clarify your intent behind the actions you take and always keep your word as a leader. Demonstrating integrity and credibility to your team helps them trust you as their leader, helps them understand your goals, and justifies your actions.
7. Reach out even when things look okay
The point about communication feeds into the argument of reaching out even when things seem to be going swimmingly. Think about it. Your employee has never had an issue so far.
However, they’re currently stuck with an issue relating to a project they’re working on. They’re not entirely sure if they should reach out on Slack or send an email since they haven’t done this before.
The situation can stress the employee out and result in either of the two outcomes: either things go as planned, or mess something up.
The latter isn’t a great place to have your team in because it can impact their morale significantly. Its impact will likely follow through in their work and slow your team down significantly.
There’s an easy way to fix this, though. Just reach out to the members every once in a while. Ask about how they have been getting along with their work and ask about their experience with a recent project.
If they share that they had a certain challenge but were able to resolve it, encourage them to reach out if they face challenges in the future. You don’t want to discourage autonomy; just let them know that you’re available for challenges they can’t tackle by themselves.
New Normal Calls for New Considerations
The underlying arguments for all considerations remain unchanged from what they are in an office set up. However, a virtual environment introduces a fresh set of challenges for team leaders, and tackling them can feel challenging at first.
You and your team members are both adapting to a new environment, but that doesn’t mean it has to be excruciating. Mutually helping each other get comfortable in the new environment helps teams connect and shows other people that they’re not the only ones facing difficulty.
The work-from-home model seems to be picking up, so it’s only logical to pick up skills that help you excel in your job in the new paradigm. Hopefully, the considerations discussed here helped you get closer to acing remote team management.
