If you’re managing a global team, congratulations – you’ve tapped into a limitless pool of human resources, allowing you to align with the best talent, no matter where they happen to be in the world. While there are numerous benefits to operating on a global scale, these advantages come packaged with plenty of challenges. To ensure you overcome every obstacle in style, consider implementing the following five tips:
1. Set your teams up for success
If you have core teams in Australia, the UK, and India, for example, you could find the best serviced offices Melbourne, London, and Mumbai have to offer and have your teams work collectively from these hubs. Even if they only do a day a week in the office, having this sense of genuine connection can offer a boost of morale and motivation. It also makes collaborating on certain projects and coordinating all-company conference calls easier.
2. Avoid the urge to micromanage
If you’re managing a global team, it’s essential to make peace with the fact that you cannot oversee every aspect of operations. You can’t be awake at all hours or involved in all projects, so you’re going to have to trust your team.
It is true that modern technology provides us with plenty of ways to track, monitor, and digitally micromanage our team members. These apps, devices, and software solutions fall under the dubious new label of bossware, and they construct a dystopian reality around the employees subjected to them.
3. Create and share guides, templates, and processes
While it’s essential to trust your global team, that doesn’t mean they can operate efficiently without guidance. You can’t be logged on and available all the time, and you need your team to be able to collaborate and keep things flowing in your absence.
The trick here is to arm them with style guides, content calendars, templates, and clear processes to follow for all business functions. These need to be shared on a platform where all team members can access the resources they need. For security reasons, it’s best to silo information so that people only have access to the data they need to perform their role within the company.
4. Automate as much as you can
One of the best ways to take pressure off you and your team and make way for global growth is to automate as many processes as you can. From accounts payable automation to RPA-driven data entry, there’s no end to the number of processes you can hand over to AI. Not only does this free up time for you and your staff, but it also generally saves a large amount of time and cuts out the issue of human error.
Just be sure to fully explore your options before impulse-buying an RPA license. Many automation platforms promise a no-code experience, but the reality is often far more complicated than they make it seem.
5. Communication is the backbone of growth
From the platforms you choose and the technology you employ to the words you use and the expectations you set, communication is central to success in a growing global team. You can’t allow it to be a “common sense” thing. Instead, let everyone know what communication standards are expected. This may mean that everyone must share clear schedules for their workdays, send follow-up emails after meetings, or any number of other set communication processes.
Managing a global team is tough enough, but when you’re also driving growth in your company, those challenges only magnify. Hopefully, the tips above help you glide through this difficult but exciting time with a little more ease.
