BUSINESS

Pro Tips: How to Effectively Lead and Manage Remote Teams

If you’re in charge of managing a remote team, you’re probably overwhelmed with various challenges. Not only are we all concerned about the spread of the pandemic and worried about keeping everyone healthy, but there are numerous other potential problems that might prevent your team from being efficient enough. In order to help you make the most of the situation and bring out the best in your team members, we’ve prepared the following list of tips shared by seasoned professionals.

Cast your net wider

It’s no longer the case that you need to look for team members in the area where you live. After all, remote working allows people to work for employers located anywhere in the world. This is typically best done through a company that offers affordable global PEO solutions. You may be able to build a team of experts you couldn’t dream of just a few years ago. This also gives you a chance to be more selective and specific when looking for the right candidates.

Communication

There is no successful team without effective communication. Since you don’t share the same physical location, you need to establish ground rules for communication. How does the team keep in touch? When can they reach out to other members? How often do you need to communicate? You need to clearly define the purpose of each mode of communication in order to streamline conversations and define common availability hours and make them mandatory. You need to use a range of communication tools, video conferencing tools, and instant-messaging tools. Also, consider joining Gmail CRM that allows you to share and update centralized contacts.

Handling customers from all over the world

As a team leader, you can now cater to clients in any part of the world 24/7. The fact that remote teams don’t need to share a physical location allows you to always have someone available to cover different time zones. This might pose some challenges, but they can be dealt with. One of the things you need to do is appoint someone to be in charge during certain intervals during the day, but make sure there is always someone responsible at work.

Track time and employee activity

Probably the biggest challenge for most remote teams is to remain productive, particularly if they are new to remote work. That is why you need to carefully monitor what your team are doing and how much time is spent by remote workers on each task. This info is useful when you start analyzing employees’ productivity.

Check-ins and one-on-ones

Leading remote teams includes keeping everyone on the same page at all times. To do this, you need to conduct regular one-on-one check-ins with your employees. The purpose of these is to create opportunities for employees to talk about any obstacles and concerns they might have about their tasks. You need to stay open and understanding of what your workers have to say and offer advice and support you can. This builds trust with your remote workforce, which is of utmost importance.

Shifting focus

You may need to focus on outcomes, rather than on activities. This will also help you boost engagement and empower employees. Set clear and attainable goals and let your employees develop a strategy and watch how their creativity is enhanced. Chances are you’ll be surprised with how much effort they invest and with the quality of their ideas.

Provide resources

You can’t expect your employees to be able to provide the results you want unless you give them proper training and resources. Apart from helping them learn everything they need for work, you need to make sure they have all the right hardware. This may mean that you need to spend more than you planned, but without the right equipment, your employees won’t be able to work properly. It’s simply not fair to ask people to perform if they don’t have the right resources.

Remove obstacles

Apart from providing all the necessary tools and resources, the team leader also needs to make sure most obstacles are removed. In this context, we need to consider physical and emotional isolation, distractions at home, children engaged in home-schooling, delivery services ringing the doorbell every hour. There is no way one person can remove all such obstacles, but the point is to be in touch with every team member and know what is going on in their lives.

These are some of the best and most efficient tips experts offer to those who need to lead and manage remote teams. Following them will help you become a better team leader in these circumstances and help your organization achieve its goals in a completely different environment.