How To Excel at Managing a Remote Team

In the present times, working home is no more optional but has become the need of the time. Now, companies prefer to hire talent across the globe to increase their productivity and to collect ideas from different parts of the world. Everyone, including Multinational Companies, and large organizations, is asking their employees to work remotely.

Working remotely, or from a place more suited to the employee itself has many benefits, such as, zero moving costs, and working in the preferred hours by the employees. Though, coordinating the activities of the remote team workers is like managing a long-distance relationship with your employees and team members. A lot of dedication and commitment is required to see the smooth functioning of the task.

But managing and over-looking the professed smooth functioning is anything but a real job. Coordinating workforces, demanding done tasks at a set time, holding virtual meetings, and appointing job requirements can be a bit of a hassle.

Problems you might face managing a remote team

• When the people you narrowed for consideration are not in your immediate interactive reach, relaying your expectations and understanding limitations is not done very easily.
• In a world filled to the brim with helpful tools, it still is not easy to stumble upon the one that suits you the most. And without the best tools, managing a remote team is only more like a dream.
• When employees are not working face-to-face, asking them to collaborate is no cakewalk. The distance amongst the workers hinders the free flow of creativity.
• Different time zones limit the pace of the task.
• Occasional meetings drain the employees of much-needed motivation and might render them a bit more nonchalant than required.

Luckily, a few tools at your disposal will help greatly in managing a remote team. Combined with some other simple tips, you will have a team working smoothly as a well-oiled machine!

Lay your hands on the best tool

A good tool working on your beck and call will take away more than half of your worries. And when you have the best one out there, managing a remote team will be easy or even enjoyable. You get to bring out the best from the people you choose. Combining workers, tracking their day to day performance, or even hosting Zoom meetings, you get the whole package with monday.com.

Having the best tool allows you to collaborate the most talented anywhere across the globe, thus crossing the limitations of borders. What’s more, you get to stay safe at home away from the Covid-19 chaos!

Drive the positive force

In a business where so much can go wrong, never take chances with your team. At times when assessing all your workers can be troublesome, let alone track their work, keep your calm and organize. Again, you can rely on the help of a software to keep all your workers and their daily inputs together or demand a daily one on one yourself.

Daily interaction with your employees will instill them with a sense of responsibility and take much from your shoulders.

Encourage feedback among the employees.

Little or no interaction or insufficient conversations amongst the employees will only make them shy when they have to work along with each other. Lack of cooperation is certainly something you cannot afford from a team that has to work remotely.

• Set high weekly goals that demand employees to work together to achieve tasks that cannot be achieved solely. A gentle tug at cooperation will allow the employees to appreciate each other’s worth.
• Regular virtual meetings sprinkled with frequent positive criticism can get you a long way too. Ensure that your employees communicate agreements or differences when others put a point forward.

Track it all down to recruitment

Everything works well if you have a team that is self-motivated and is a group of doers. Recruiting employees can be hindered by the limited interaction, but use your remote team controlling tools like monday.com to assess possible candidates’ side by side. You will get more insight into who is better suited, and hence problems like lack of communication or motive can be overcome.

Limit cultural influence

If your team is a patchwork of the world put together, you will notice the difference in behavior and the work output. People from different backgrounds will be different at ease with certain aspects of work, like punctuality itself.

Do a little homework and try to understand what you can get to know about your team from their background. Using this information, pair your employees with people they are more likely to bond with. But draw a line to where the cultural influence can pass. Forbid any strong cultural connections and instill the sense that should come with being a global employee.

Let the employees find their own road.

Spoon feeding your employees will not take you much far. Clear cut instructions are a necessity of virtual team management, but leave room for research and motivation.

Employees, when faced with situations that they themselves have to solve, will help them gain a sense of obligation and duty and also a force that will keep them working.

Make a leadership chart focusing on well an employee is versed with his requirements and inspire others to follow.

Provide room for the flow of creativity

Employees who choose to work remotely do so to get more room for themselves, and to work at timings better suited to them. For certain people, remoteness works as a catalyst to fuel their creativity.

While order and punctuality are something you should desire the most, allow a few considerations so that your workers do not feel overcrowded or burdened. Trust your workers and ask them to fill daily milestones at ease as long as you travel smoothly along with your roadmap of the bigger picture.

Many of your doubts should be lifted with this insight. So, get working on your remote team and bring the world together!