7 Best Practices to Manage Remote Teams Effectively

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7 Best Practices to Manage Remote Teams Effectively

Managing remote teams is a challenging task. It can be difficult to get the best performance out of people you do not often see or may have even met. However, you should be aware that remote and hybrid working are not going away soon. Regardless, the challenges of managing remote teams are a small price to pay for the benefits they provide. 

You can accomplish business goals, encourage work-life balance, raise employee satisfaction, and more if you can efficiently manage remote teams in the modern workplace. So, whether you are new to managing remote team members or have been doing it for a while, this article will go over some of the best practices you can use to effectively manage virtual teams.

Here are some of them for your information:

  • Set Clear Expectations and Maintain Transparency
  • Pick the Right Communication Channels
  • Establish Consistent Check-in Times
  • Document Every Detail
  • Prioritise Mental health and Well-being
  • Focus on Outputs, Not Activities
  • Embrace Both Small and Large Wins

1. Set Clear Expectations and Maintain Transparency

When managing remote workers, it is crucial to define expectations and boundaries within which your team members can work. It makes it possible for everyone to communicate clearly and collaborate more successfully. Additionally, being upfront and honest with your team about potential issues is essential for a successful remote team. The leadership’s openness fosters a strong sense of camaraderie within the team.

  • This can only be accomplished by clearly outlining for your team members the rules and regulations you expect of them and communicating to them your exact strategy for managing them virtually. 
  • Make sure the team is aware of the company culture, policies regarding remote work, project guidelines, communication style guides, and expected levels of availability and workload. 
  • Organising a kick-off meeting to introduce all the policies and procedures is the best way to begin implementing work expectations when managing virtual teams. 
  • At weekly and monthly meetings, keep reinforcing them after that.

2. Pick the Right Communication Channels

Setting up the appropriate channels of communication is essential to effectively managing remote teams. Depending on its intended use, communication can take on different forms. An email can be formal and businesslike, for instance, whereas a text message can be informal and casual. Depending on the medium, there can be significant differences in how a message is received. Sometimes, services like instant messaging, cloud sharing, and virtual meetings may be preferable. 

Additionally, you can designate online chat and email as your team’s primary means of communication if you would like to reduce the number of impromptu video calls. However, avoid using too many different tools and channels, as they can overwhelm your team and cause essential messages to slip through the cracks. It is better to use an employee engagement tool with multiple channels of communication rather than a single platform for communication. 

Make sure you hold regular one-on-one meetings with your team members as well. Messages and priorities can become mixed up when you communicate primarily through Slack or other tools. Therefore, it is beneficial to hold a weekly kick-off meeting, where you can share information about the week’s priorities, provide status updates on ongoing projects, and ensure clarity about new initiatives.

3. Establish Consistent Check-in Times

Unlike working from the office, it is not easy to check in with remote teams regularly, especially if your team has just started working remotely. In such situations, it may be necessary to arrange additional check-ins until the team members have effectively adjusted to the new schedule. Then, scale back according to what your team finds effective and the amount of work assigned.   

Start with a 15- to 20-minute daily meeting. As you go around in a circle, give each employee a chance to share their daily plan, any concerns they may have, and what support they require from their teammates. When your team is going to be unavailable or away from their work, it’s also good practice to inform them in advance and provide updates as needed. But don’t make them feel like they are being monitored.

4. Document Every Detail

Remote team management can become very challenging very quickly. When transferring project activities from an offline to an online setting, many necessary steps and tasks may be overlooked. Thus, having only the workflows, roles, and procedures in your mind is insufficient for efficient remote team management.

  • Documenting as much as possible and making the documentation easily accessible to all remote employees is the best way to keep employees on board and improve team productivity.
  • Provide thorough documentation outlining all the tasks the team must complete, along with deadlines and accountability information. 
  • Placing these documents on a shared storage platform and granting team members access anytime will ensure they are always available for your team to reference. 
  • Doing this will lessen bottlenecks, and team members will work more productively to finish their tasks.

5. Prioritise Mental health and Well-being

When managing a remote team, you have less opportunity to learn about the emotional challenges your employees are facing, so you should place a greater emphasis on your team members’ mental health when they are working remotely than you do when they are in the office. 

For instance, some workers might find adjusting to working remotely simpler and maintaining good health than others. If they don’t, you must figure out who they are and provide for their needs. Here are a few methods to go about doing that:

  • Providing mental health benefits to employees
  • Promoting transparent communication within the team
  • Designating a psychotherapist with whom the team can communicate
  • Sharing self-care guidelines and resources
  • Encouraging employees to take regular breaks

Encourage social interactions between remote teams as well. To ensure that employees can connect and socialise with one another, you must proactively create opportunities for them. You can do it through virtual hangouts, brainstorms, coffee standups, online lunches, and team-building games. 

6. Focus on Outputs, Not Activities

In a traditional workplace, an employee is generally considered to have completed a full day’s work if they have checked in, are seated at their desk, and leave at the scheduled time. But in the context of remote work, it is getting harder to tell the difference between the home and the office. That is why paying attention to the output is critical rather than how long someone works at a desk.

Therefore, it is preferable to make room for them and promote group discussions so that you can better understand the obstacles facing your team and implement changes or address problems that are preventing members from giving their best work.

7. Embrace Both Small and Large Wins

Collaborating to accomplish objectives is how a team is formed. Therefore, do not let the physical distance prevent you from acknowledging and rewarding achievements when leading virtual teams. Your remote workers will be inspired to do their best when you recognise and celebrate their accomplishments. Giving a team member a bonus day off, arranging for a gift to be delivered to their door, or organising virtual parties are a few examples. 

Furthermore, do not hold off on celebrating until after you have completed a noteworthy task. Short-term achievements are essential, particularly when leading remote teams. Otherwise, your team members may become disheartened.

So, you read about the best practices to manage remote teams effectively. It is evident that leading remote teams is a challenging task. Not only must you monitor the completion of tasks and project objectives closely, but you must also pay close attention to the relationships and emotional health of team members. Thus, put these best practices into practice right now and watch how they improve the output of your remote team.

Interesting Links:

What Great Remote Managers Do Differently

How to be a Great Remote Manager

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