The Art of Managing a Remote Workforce: How to Stay in The Loop?

It might be difficult to keep remote workers motivated and productive while working remotely, making it  difficult to establish a work culture and promote teamwork. Here’s how to effectively manage a remote team.

As the globe enters this worldwide work-from-home experiment, we are beginning to see just how beneficial remote working is. Remote working may come naturally to some of your employees more than others, but as their manager, you must provide certain critical ideas and methods to guarantee that your team remains happy and healthy. That is why managers need creative ways to bring their teams together, no matter where their employees work.

Some of the challenges you might face are:

• Keeping up to date
• Combatting burn-out and isolation
• Overcoming time-zone differences
• Keeping a positive work environment
• Keeping track of individual and group accomplishments

Here are the methods to manage a remote team, and stay in the loop of operation.

Create a Trust and Accountability Culture

Your remote team's effectiveness and well-being are strongly dependent on how much you trust your employees to accomplish their jobs even when you can't see them. Most product managers become sucked into the useless practice of micromanagement. Although this is a natural human fault to some level, unnecessarily managing your team members and blaming them for inadequacies is never a solution.

Show Appraisal and Appreciation

Showing gratitude might help to alleviate many of the tensions in your remote team. Little and frequent performance feedback prevents big modifications later on and allows your remote personnel to stay in sync despite distance and everyday change. Make an effort to recognize and appreciate your employees' contributions. 

Maintain a Daily Check-In 

Remote teams lack the office benefit of walking by someone's desk to observe how a project is progressing. Reaching out via a chat tool such as Slack or booking time on someone's calendar can potentially be inconvenient or disruptive to productivity. Daily check-ins serve as a standing meeting to address these issues. They keep managers updated on what's going on with the rest of their team. It also gives remote workers a set, low-stakes opportunity to voice up.

Manage Expectations

Management can set expectations by setting clear expectations early on. This could apply to longer-term goals as well as day-to-day expectations, such as defining "work hours." Setting expectations is an excellent habit to develop for managers in general. This strategy is especially beneficial for remote teams.

Be Adaptable

Managers should endeavor to understand the stresses that remote workers are likely to experience. For example, does someone require more assistance, mentoring, or autonomy? Would increased social activities and company culture-building assist the team? Or do they require more time away from screens? The more managers can adapt to their remote employees' holistic needs, the more successful their efforts and the overall team will be.

Provide ongoing assistance

It goes without saying that you should always provide assistance to your employees. For example, scheduling talks allows your staff to speak up about any issues they are experiencing and seek assistance. They may also be dealing with non-work-related issues, so knowing that you, as a manager, are there for them will be really beneficial!

Companies must establish an atmosphere in which leadership and workers may stay engaged while working from home. A few deliberate and thoughtful actions may go a long way toward making everyone feel like they are a part of the team—regardless of where they are.

SiiRa understands the importance of building balanced yet high-performing remote teams, and we're here to help ensure that! When you’re ready to build your remote team, book a call with us through our website.