10 Tips To Better Manage Remote Teams And Drive Growth Cracked 2024

Many managers have been conditioned to act more removed than these times require. They must unlearn their usual management style because empathy is essential in a remote work environment. Supervisors and managers must understand the routines, rituals and boundaries that help employees create and maintain work-life balance and wellbeing. It’s easy to spot employees in the office who come in early and stay late, but not when they’re working from home.

Regular interactions with the team will go a long way in boosting morale and overall productivity. So don’t be shy to send out some messages of appreciation or even some memes and GIFs. Holding employees accountable for their work will not only give them a sense of responsibility, but also the confidence that they are in charge of their own projects, in their own phase.

It’s essential to set clear guidelines when it comes to productivity in a telecommuting workplace. The biggest takeaway from this is that its quite possible to manage a remote software development team successfully. Good leaders are able to produce positive outcomes in any situation you throw at them.

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It allows them to choose from where they want to work and saves their time by removing the commuting need. Please, share your thoughts and ideas, describe a problem or give us information Managing a Remote Team on how we can help. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention , one out of four employees complains that work is the number one stress factor they deal with.

• Remote work has skyrocketed since the onset of the pandemic, which forced many companies to close their physical offices and carry out operations virtually.
• Hold employees accountable to your expectations by having a one-on-one weekly meeting with each team member.
• If you have a remote team, you’ll notice there are a few key differences from your in-office teams.
• Employees, too, may feel out of sorts in the beginning while they adjust to significant changes.
• Keep in mind, team updates may vary based on time zones and preferred work hours, so set expectations for team members in regards to communication.

While some workers might find it easy to adapt to remote working, project guidelines, and company regulations, some may need more time to get accustomed to how you handle working from home. The World Health Organization found that poor productivity due to anxiety and depression cost the world $1 trillion every year. However, it also found that for every $1 invested in mental health, there’s $4 worth of improvement in health and productivity.

Learning how to manage a remote team shouldn’t be as difficult as it might seem. But don’t be too harsh when you identify problems and make corrections. This virtual face-to-face assessment could be the perfect time to ask for project management feedback and suggestions on how to move forward. Team members who need more time to adjust to the remote environment might deal with mental health concerns if they continue to work under pressure. Your check-ins don’t necessarily have to be daily — schedule check-ins based on what works best for your team, pending projects, and work hours.

Make an employee manual that includes information such as company culture, rules, and expectations to set the remote team up for success. Set realistic expectations – As you have a distributed team, surely the time zone is different from employees to employees. As a team leader, provide your team with appropriate instructions on how to conduct the task, so that they can work as a team or independently, and finish their task before the deadline.

Effective Remote Team Communication

We can’t overemphasize the importance of communication between managers and remote staff when learning how to manage a remote team. Just as in a traditional office workspace, managers are expected to keep workers up-to-date on staffing changes and policies. Although it’s essential to see how well team members meet expectations, don’t oversee their actions too closely, as that can breed distrust.

These conversations also facilitate team member bonding and trust, fostering more robust team communication in collaborative projects. With such an increasing number of remote workers, how are these tech companies getting the most out of their remote development teams? Before we know how to manage a remote team, let’s learn the benefits of hiring remote employees. Set up one-on-one weekly or monthly meetings with each virtual team member you manage. Jumping on Zoom calls with your employees for career talks is a great way to manage remote teams.

Leaders carry their followers every step instead of sending their followers to the forefront without setting the pace. You can solve these problems with the right remote working management practices. Each blueprint can be accompanied by a Guided Implementation that provides you access to our world-class analysts to help you get through the project. The must-attend conference for HR leaders where insights and practical advice are brought to life. If you are at an office or shared network, you can ask the network administrator to run a scan across the network looking for misconfigured or infected devices. Articles that appear on this website are for information purposes only.

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Review what you’ve done in the past, connect with employees to explore their goals, and begin identifying opportunities to convert in-person training to remote. Create additional slack channels, have virtual meetings that combine different teams, hold weekly company-wide info sessions to convey broader strategy. It may seem like overkill, but the more you encourage regular collaboration and set up the channels to do so, the more likely that everyone stays informed and encouraged. Managers need to learn how to create this new ROWE culture and implement processes that allow employees time for deep work. They must build a culture of trust so they don’t micromanage their staff.

Your association could partner with remote work consultants or HR firms to develop this wellbeing content. 80% of company leaders plan to allow employees to work remotely at least part of the time after the pandemic. 47% of them will allow employees to switch completely to remote work. When you provide your remote team with a quality LMS, you help them feel supported even in a remote setting. You can boost collaboration by encouraging remote and in-person teams to build strong relationships through regular communication and remote meetings.

#7: Manage A Hybrid Team

Virtual employees crave more meaningful interactions about performance and development with their managers. As such, it’s up to you to ensure that your remote employees adhere to company policies and follow certain rules about communication etiquette. These tasks are not unique to remote work practices but can become more complicated, especially for virtual teams. Less dissatisfaction – Remote employees work in their own comfort zone, being surrounded by their loved one. They save money and commute time, it gives them extra time to invest in their personal life. Happier Workforce – Everyone knows that happy employees perform better and are productive enough to help their company succeed.

While managing remote teams, ensure you find that delicate balance between continually pinging employees and delegating workflow by setting up automation. Adapting to this new work style can be scary, especially if there isn’t enough time to prepare for the change. However, if you know how to manage remote teams the right way, you’ll get the best results from your remote workers. There are thousands of managers and team leaders who have suddenly found themselves managing remote teams. As common as remote working is nowadays, team managers still face challenges when managing remote teams. One of the best tools for remote teams to leverage is video conferencing.

These sessions should be used to go over project goals, expectations, challenges and progress. Fortunately today, there are a host of collaboration and project management tools that help remote teams with communication, meetings and task management. Labels serve as necessary guidelines for effectively managing remote teams.

Often, when workers and employers communicate by phone or video chat, what is heard and seen may not be the same. This can lead to misunderstandings and miscommunication, especially in emotionally charged topics. There can also be problems in translating messages from text to speech, since nuances and emotions are missing. Keep in touch every now and then.Try to keep in touch with your employees and co-workers as much as possible. Make sure they have everything they need and make it crystal clear that you are there to support them. This should be done every week or day depending upon your project goals.

These activities will help your team to feel more connected and this helps them start working together towards the same goal as a cohesive unit. Due to the lack of transparency, people tend to be left out of important information because it is not widely available and is only communicated between closed groups. This means that you can connect with your staff and see what project they are working on, whenever necessary, simply by opening these software. With all of the above in mind, it’s no wonder remote working practice is spreading so quickly in companies around the world. © 2022 WeAreDevelopers – Connecting software developers with top employers worldwide. Some of your team members may not complain about this, but stress will reflect on their work performance.

Remote teams tend to feel like silent contributors to the businesses for which they work. If you don’t actively welcome and encourage feedback, you’ll only contribute to the feeling of isolation. When you manage a remote team, make sure you check in with them frequently to see how they’re doing. You may find that some of your employees work exceptionally well in the office but tend to get too distracted when working remotely. If you want to add to your remote team, hire people who have experience working remotely and who already know how to self-manage effectively.

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With digital communications, there are many options for engaging with employees, but a lack of structure can cause confusion and chaos. Determine which channels — including email, direct messaging, video chat and phone calls — should be used for each type of communication and level of urgency. Set expectations for group and intra-team communications and use digital tools to ensure efficient information sharing. This exchange is essential to building a personal connection, making your workers feel valued by you and the organization. Start individual and team meetings by asking about your employees’ weekends, trips they returned from or upcoming holiday plans.

One of the most obvious differences between remote and in-office teams isgeographical location. While in-office teams work on site, remote teams can theoretically work from a wide variety of locations across the globe. Managers cannot rely upon spontaneous social interactions that happen organically when people are co-located to build meaningful and trusting relationships. Space and time need to be created in a virtual environment for this to happen. Being away from a physical workspace can mean employees will work in an environment with more distractions and interruptions. This may, among other effects, result in longer turnaround time for projects.

Learning how to manage a hybrid team reduces the chances of creating a remote divide. Misperceptions won’t fester and misunderstandings will be quickly resolved. The transition to remote work was like the transition to emergency remote instruction for schoolkids. Neither companies nor schools were prepared for such a drastic disruption. They implemented systems quickly and figured out processes on the fly.

Amazing Tools For Team Collaboration

Work relationships can seem intimidating and impossible to develop remotely. It’s easy to let your remote teams function with very little oversight and communication, but this would be a mistake. You should make it a goal to connect with your remote employees at least once per day. You can do this through a video chat, phone call, email, or instant message.

It can be easy to overdo it and invest in too many tools that bog down workflows rather than improve them. So, focus on core applications that elevate your team and if possible, help automate specific tasks. Managers must avoid playing favorites when some employees return to the office.

Benefits Of Having A Remote Team Of Developers

Schedule a weekly appointment with your entire team so that everyone has visibility into and accountability for all shared projects. Among the challenges of managing a team remotely are costs involved in providing teleworker tools and services. These include fees for the bandwidth needed to transmit data, file storage space, software licensing fees and more. Managers should be aware that these costs can add up and should be considered when planning projects and budgets. Many teleworkers may feel they cannot make suggestions to employers because of physical distance.

Managing virtual teams does not require developing new manager competencies. Instead, managers need to “dial up” competencies they already have and adjust their approaches. Hold employees accountable to your expectations by having a one-on-one weekly meeting with each team member. Require each employee to send you a work schedule in advance of the meeting with details on projects, tasks and deadlines in order to assure you that everything is on track.