When we desire to maintain a long-distance relationship that is not easy for all. Similarly, if you are a beginner at managing a team remotely it won’t be a simple task for you.
You need to be smart and vigilant to manage your team remotely by getting help from this article on the top 5 remote team management tips for beginners.
The reality is that the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has to make us taught that we can do business by maintaining a long distance. By the end of March 2020, the earth had faced prolonged tragedy over 100 countries had instituted a form of lockdown. Keeping millions of people in their houses and compelling many companies to ask their workers to work and operate remotely.
The analysis and research service, GWA (Global Workplace Analytics), announces that “surveys showed 80% of workers want to operate from the house at least some of the time.”
The same association predicts that, by the end of 2021, up to 30% of the global workforce will be operating from the house certain days a week.
For those beginners who suddenly realize themselves liable for controlling remote teams and workers, this may seem like being thrown into the dark end. Certainly, managing remote teams is something that requires to be done in a particular style.
This also indicates as a supervisor, you will not only continue with business as usual, but you are doing something much more than that.
Now we have provided here the top 5 remote team management tips for you to successfully manage remote teams to help you navigate across a new standard.
What Is A Remote Team?
A remote team is a gathering of experts of different time zones, skills, and diverse cultures, operating on a combined project together. Every teammate works from a different place, several towns, and works beyond time and space.
A remote team is constituted of members who share the duty of gaining defined goals and who operate from a flexible mix of stationary, mobile, and/or remote work situations.
Working remotely is an individual thing and managing a remote team as a manager or entrepreneur is another challenge. Remote work is everywhere. There is a lot of variety when the team members are sitting directly in front of the office and when they are operating outside of an office building.
When you are running remote workers, you would know the difficulties that come with including project management, managing crews, and managing projects on time.
Top 5 remote team management tips for beginners
For that, there are countless team managers and directors who see themselves suddenly managing a completely remote team. Indeed, that can be horrifying, particularly if it’s the beginning time you’ve ever had to do so and didn’t have much time to be ready. Now we are here to give you the Top 5 remote team management tips for beginners to make your work easy and smooth.
Create A Time Schedule For All
Every business has a schedule to maintain: whether working remotely or physically. Staying clear with employees will keep them concentrated on working towards the same schedule.
You should set a clear schedule and expectations for:
Work hours
Communication system
Scheduled meetings
Timely meetings
Key projects and deadlines
Respond to emails
Respond to calls
Provide flexibility on work hours- Employees operating from home will exactly require flexibility with their work hours. Also, it’s necessary to allow a few flexibilities while managing remote teams. Besides, if things are completely unpredictable then it will be challenging to get a shared collaboration window if all of your team are online at the same time and ready to chat. A perfect time schedule for each team can easily solve this issue.
Communicating in different time zones- Time Zones can create a huge impact on communication in a remote team. When employees of your team operate in separate time zones, then you need to be sure that you have an overlapping time, when everyone is running, and organize your remote meetings through these times. Though this might not be suitable for all types of business. Depending on the kind of job you are preparing you may need to consider only hiring somebody in the same time zone.
Be active in communication
It obviously goes without saying that you should be in frequent conversation with your remote team. One of the most difficult things about working from home, particularly when you’re used to an office atmosphere, is the feeling of loneliness and separation that can set in.
Choose the right communication style- If team members operate in the same place as the manager, it’s comfortable for an employee to step into the manager’s office and ask about something. When operating remotely, your team employees may not forever have an idea of wherever you are at a provided time. Therefore, you would need to be clear on how you will have an open line of communication and eliminate any conversation barriers.
You need to choose the type of communication that works best for you.
Video communication– A few types of communication should only be managed over with sound or voice. Any kind of sensitive issue such as production difficulties should be managed over the phone.
But, video chat would be even more beneficial as it provides you with more visual signs of what is going on with the different person. It can feel isolating and strange to chat only by writing but adding video effects to your remote business feels more “solid”.
Email– Email is one of the most sustainable and usable communication ways for managing a remote team. Emails are also used for quick feedback. You can also restore most email communication with different tools such as project management tools or chat programs.
You can create a mail schedule for your remote team to report the daily tasks at the end of the day.
Communication by Chating– Nowadays chatting is so simple by using lots of handy applications. Chatting will help you to give a quick reply and feedback. Skype, Google Hangouts, WhatsApp, and lots of other systems are excellent for quick instant communications where you require real-time interaction.
To ensure that all team members are clear about how communication will occur in the remote team, consider building a communication plan. That will define the number of meetings you will do with your team remotely.
Determine to use of the Most Effective Technology
The purpose why remote teams have become pervasive is the availability of technology. But, as a beginner, you have to ask an essential question – which technology will allow my remote team to serve at its best? There are lots of systems and platforms that have been invented to cure this issue.
But all will not work here perfectly because many companies do various things. So, this is your job to choose the best technologies to operate your remote team and also support your team to stay connected.
There are lots of technology options for managing team communications like Google Hangouts, Slack, Skype and Zoom, WhatsApp, Email, VoIP, Social media, and other alternatives. In my opinion, Zoom is apparently one of the best technologies, it has lots of small optimizations that develop your remote communication.
Determine Outputs, Not on the Activity
It’s not possible to handle every aspect of the task accomplished by a remote team. As a team leader, you shouldn’t be trying to handle every aspect of any team’s performance, especially when your team is spread across several areas. Rather than focusing on activity or hours served, concentrate on the results and host your team accordingly.
When we are talking about remote work, the workplace and work from home are no longer easy to separate. Thus, it is necessary to concentrate on what is given, instead of the number of times an individual spends sitting at the desk.
To determine outputs or results, there is a requirement for clarity about what should be achieved over a provided time. To ensure that work doesn’t lag, build milestones that have specific deadlines, and plan meetings to follow up on updates.
Encourage and Embrace everyone
It is no wonder to come over cultural obstacles when leading remote teams. The difficulty with multicultural teams includes misunderstandings that separate the teams apart.
It becomes much more difficult to manage the characters of different types, embracing cultural differences to allow team building. So you need to be smarter and more charming to operate with your remote team. You need to respect their words, and also encourage and Embrace diversity.
Do Not Overload Employees- When you have no option but to give a remote worker an urgent duty, ask him/her how it will affect his/her other task deadlines. The employee may then give you an exact schedule of how much time he requires to be added to the tasks. Let your remote team members feel light about the given task. If proper care is not taken, employees may end up getting overloaded.
Respect everyone- you have to show respect to your team members individually. Let them speak when you are doing meetings online. You have to respect their speech during the communication remotely.
Provide good feedback- Remote team members do not have the facility to communicate with you in the same place that you can provide them any formal feedback. For that, your employees may have always worried about their ability to meet the standard. This depends on you to be considered when it comes to giving feedback to your team members.
Emotional support- To give emotional support, you will be required to always be in contact with your employees including asking them if there is anything they want from you.
Wrapped up
This is just the start, though. According to Owl Labs State of Remote Work 2019, 42% of remote operators have plans to work remotely more often over the next five years than they do presently.
So we should be prepared to manage our business and employees remotely. Running a remote team might be more complicated if you are not ready yet. As you can see it’s not that difficult to manage a remote team. All you have to follow the suggested tips to communicate with your remote team members properly.
