There is no question that remote working has progressed from a trend to more than one at the moment.
Companies all over the world are seeing remote working as a need. As a result of this evolution, hundreds of managers and team leaders are suddenly required to oversee a wholly remote crew. When you’re compelled to do something for the first time, it’s natural to be terrified. This is especially true if you just had a short amount of time to prepare.
Photo by Andrew Neel
If you are in that position, here are a few pointers to help you and your team succeed:
Maintain Daily Check-Ins
When possible, arrange for this to be done one-on-one and through video. The usefulness of talking on the phone, emailing, or utilising Slack is somewhat limited. You must be available if you want to adequately engage your team. However, applications such as Zoom or Google’s Team Hangouts make this pretty simple. This should be done every day for the first time. Set an agenda and equip your team members with all of the resources they need to perform their jobs in order to reach your goal. Telecommunication Solutions can help you to set up a seamless working environment.
Communication Is Required At All Times
It should go without saying that you should communicate with your team on a frequent basis. One of the most difficult elements about working from home, particularly if you’re used to working in an office, is that you can become lonely if you’re not used to it. This is especially true given the degree of social distancing that people engage in these days. Communication is essential, whether it’s discussing the holiday celebration for distant staff or the weekly goals.
Make Use of Technology
As a manager, it is your responsibility to guarantee that your staff communicates with one another. Using communication tools is one of the simplest methods to accomplish this. Although email and text messages can be used as a temporary solution, collaborating and communicating using technologies like Slack or Microsoft Teams may be significantly more productive. Many of these tools are initially inexpensive, and some are so good that they justify the expense.
Control Expectations
Set reasonable expectations for your team’s work and ensure they understand what they should do. By the way, as a manager, you are also responsible for managing expectations. You will set yourself and your staff up for success by clearly articulating the tasks and explaining why they are important. Your team will also understand how you will measure success. Every task or project that your team works on should have a clear scope, dates, and deliverables. If you don’t do this, you can find yourself wondering what everyone was up to in a few weeks.
Focus On Activity Rather Than Figures
A remote team cannot manage all parts of the task in the same manner that a local team can. To be fair, you shouldn’t try to oversee every part of a team’s work, but this is especially true when you have an international team working remotely. Instead, focus on the outcomes of your team’s work rather than the activity itself or the number of hours done.
Your Team’s Resources
If you want your team to succeed, make sure they have the tools they need. You might suddenly find yourself with a team of remote workers, which means you’ll need to supply them with equipment like computers, software, or mobile devices, as well as greater internet. We cannot assume that everyone will have all of those attributes, and it is your role as a manager to encourage and ensure their presence. At the end of the day your team isn’t going to be able to do what they need to do if they haven’t got the right tools or equipment, so set your team up for success and ask them what they need.
Be Adaptable
It is critical that you recognize that your crew is extremely busy, especially in the current climate. The fact that you may not complete tasks is not an excuse, but rather an opportunity to reconsider what productivity entails in the first place. The eight-hour workday has passed us by. It’s also improbable that many individuals will work normal hours in the future. Allow your employees to work when it is most productive for them by offering them the leeway to do so. They’ll be better off, in the long run, this way.
This brief advice should assist you in successfully managing your remote teams. Do you have any further suggestions to contribute in the comments section below?
