The world is rapidly changing, including the working cultures. Yes… you heard me right; there is no need to go to the office to work, as you can work from home with just your laptop and internet connection. These drastic changes came after the world was exposed to a deadly pandemic.
These changes in working culture emerged new ways to work, communicate, and collaborate, making remote working teams profitable for many businesses. But let’s keep in mind that its a challenge to manage a team working from outside the office and a proper plan is required to organize them, manage them, communicate with them, and reward them.
So we have designed this article to help you understand every detail about working with a remote team, the ideal practices to manage them, and how they are beneficial for both employees and employers:
Insight Into Remote Team
First, let’s know what remote work is. Well, it’s a team that is made up of experts who work as a team and have a hierarchy even though they are not in one office setting. They don’t work together physically, but they have to rely on modern digital tools and platforms to work and complete projects.
Key Components of A Remote Team
Diversity in Location: Remote teams are a combination of diverse talents because they come from various parts of the world or locations that are not near the main office, like co-working spaces. This setup is a success because it brings together different unique ideas and skills that can help a company reach unexpected goals.
Communication Tools: The most essential part of a remote team is good communication, and for this, multiple tools have been devised, for example, Slack, Microsoft Teams, Zoom, and various project management software like Asana or Trello to help the team members communicate and stay organized.
Flexibility: The best part of remote work is that it allows the worker to set their working schedules and work at times they feel the most productive. This freedom to work makes the employees happier and helps prevent burnout.
Working remotely comes with many benefits but also has its downsides. So to overcome the difficult part of remote working, the managers have to change their leadership strategies and adopt new methods to help remote teams succeed.
Tips to Manage the Remote Team
Modern and well-versed leadership is the most vital component that can lead a remote team perfectly. The leader should have clear guidelines and a readiness to meet the specific needs of a remote worker
Here are some tried and tested tips to make sure your online team achieves its goals:
Set up well-versed communication channels: The backbone of every remote team is effective communication because this is the only difference between on-site and remote working settings. Frequent meetings and one-to-one communication are common practices in offices, but for remote setups, this is not possible. So to avoid any errors, it’s important to set clear communication guidelines and ensure that all the team members are well aware of how to communicate with each other efficiently.
Select the right tools to get effective communication during work, it is important to invest in a reliable tool. For example, Zoom or Google Meet is best for video conferencing, Slack is best for quick messaging, and project management software like Asana or Monday.com is considered best. Make sure to set communication rules to clarify to your team members about modes and frequency of communication. Whether it be live discussions or regular check-ins or outs, the team should have clear instructions. Also promote an open communication culture in a remote setup, the leadership has to make sure to create a comfortable environment so that every member communicates their concerns, ideas, and feedback. This will lead to strong team bonding, resulting in better performances.
Communicate Deadlines & Goals Clearly: The main concern with remote teams is the lack of frequent work checks compared to traditional settings. Communicating clear goals and deadlines is crucial to prevent any inconvenience. Prefer to set SMART goals To establish clear objectives, apply the most famous and successful strategy, i.e. SMART ( Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound). Try to incorporate project management tools so you can use management tools like Trello, Asana, or Jira that can help you manage tasks, assign tasks, and track the work progress. Go for regular check-ins for that scheduled task checking weekly or twice a week to make sure that the team members are working as instructed and offer assistance wherever required.
Develop a Strong Team Culture: Building a team culture in a remote setting is a challenge, but it’s important for team engagement and overall success. Try to make sure to recognize the achievements by celebrating milestones, both small and big. Appreciating your team member’s hard work encourages them to outperform. Make a chat group where the team can communicate casually; it creates a healthy connection and affiliation with the company.
Keep Employee’s Health as a Priority: Feeling isolated in a remote setting is common, as is feeling burnout or stress due to a lack of one-to-one interactions and having blurred boundaries between work and personal life. So as a remote team lead, you have to make sure your employee’s mental and physical health is at its peak. Offer services like wellness programs, counseling, or medications to get their help better. Make the employee feel that their mental health is the company’s priority. Its necessary to avoid burnouts, so regular breaks from work should be encouraged. Teach them to have a clear balance between work and life, ask them to log out after work, and focus on life; this will help them work better.
Benefits of Having a Remote Team
Having a remote team comes with numerous benefits, let’s discuss, you will get a chance to choose an expert for a company becomes easier as they can select from the global talent pool. This helps companies achieve beyond their expectations. Companies can reduce many costs like utilities, office space, electricity bills, etc by having a talented yet remote working team. These savings can be used to improve the company and also help employees with good bonuses and salaries. Working efficiency increases with remote settings as the employee gets to work in a comfortable environment. Remote settings help the business grow because it is never affected by any pandemic, natural disaster, etc making employee give their work and the company remain stable.
Conclusion
Putting it in a nutshell, managing a remote team successfully requires embracing technology, fostering open communication, and setting clear company goals. This will help you create a healthy working environment where the remote team thrives. With the right tools, leadership, and culture, the remote teams can achieve business goals along with having their work-life balance.
