Essential tips for coordinating and working with remote teams
Managing remote teams involves different challenges and opportunities to work with onsite teams. Complete trust and strong internal communication are crucial elements in the relationship between managers and employees who do not see each other regularly, as we will see in our manual for managing distributed teams.
Hiring the right people – with an emphasis on employees who are reliable and good communicators – is the first step.
Virtual teams require a unique skill set that enables employees to be present even from a distance, and self-reliance which allows managers to focus on creating an environment where the virtual team not only works, but thrives.
This new way of working has grown in prominence thanks to advances in online applications. Well-managed remote teams can enhance the involvement of the entire team, establish a collaborative relationship between colleagues and achieve shared goals and objectives.
Managing remote teams is a skill that can be learned and perfected, and involves:
- Considering what makes a successful virtual employee;
- Learning to promote strong communication and engagement;
- Implementing tools that promote efficiency and transparency, contribute to the team’s environment and increase customer satisfaction.
What is a distributed team?
There is a common misconception that virtual teams do not work in an integrated way. Managing remote teams is feasible, but it involves fine-tuning and integration.
The term “virtual/remote team” usually applies to professionals from a company who work outside the organization’s offices. The term can also refer to distributed teams, whose members are scattered across several locations (for example, in multiple branch offices).
Team members who operate in different time zones or locations can collaborate cohesively and efficiently and can develop positive internal relationships – even if everyone works on their own schedule.
The trend of setting up remote teams developed gradually, and was initially associated with innovative, “out of the box” businesses, before becoming the best option for thousands of organizations in recent years.
During the pandemic, the rise of the home office led to the creation of new strategies to ensure continuity and maintain proper customer service, even as employees began working from home more and more.
What are the benefits of managing remote teams?
There are definite benefits to investing in remote team management, whether you are building a team from scratch, inheriting a distributed team, or moving an office-based team to the digital realm. Examples include:
- More comprehensive and timely support for customers;
- Optimized employee experience – offering more flexible schedules and tools to streamline their routine;
- Expanded customer service hours;
- Increased dynamism – managers may have to schedule late night or early morning calls with remote workers around the world, but the team will be less tired as a result, and can reach peak performance when interacting with customers;
- Greater flexibility and quality of life – eliminating the commute between home and work can reclaim time in employee’s day-to-day lives, which they can invest in their family and personal life. Many people prefer to work non-traditional hours in exchange for this type of flexibility.
These are just some of the benefits that are leading most companies to maintain the “new normal” of the home office.
How to manage remote teams
Doing so involves several challenges, and developing intelligent ways of managing talent, so that activities are carried out with dynamism, quality and efficiency.
1 – Focus on planning and organization: planning is key to the success of any corporate activity. Create a detailed work plan and hold alignment talks with your remote team. You may wish to create a decision tree to facilitate the decision-making process and improve collaborations.
Include information on the daily workload in the decision tree, as well as the scope of work, to make the organization and planning of activities more straightforward.
2 – Encourage communication and engagement: good communication at work is essential for the smooth running of processes and the maintenance of a healthy organizational environment. This is especially the case for remote teams, where poor communication creates more opportunities for misunderstandings than in a face-to-face dialogue, and conversations are more sporadic.
Make alignment meetings a space for team members to raise questions, exchange ideas and actively participate in sector projects. And take the opportunity to guide your team on the subject of online communication, including best channels and practices.
3 – Ensure understanding: as we have seen, sincere, objective and open communication is essential for routine at work – not only for the relationships between coworkers, but also for the understanding of tasks and processes.
Explain the demands in detail, aligning expectations, objectives and deadlines, as well as which people or areas should be involved. Designate a professional responsible for monitoring steps and checking the final delivery.
Talk with your team and send an email to everyone involved, highlighting what is expected in relation to delivery. Also remember to leave room for questions, when submitting the initial request and throughout the project’s execution.
4 – Divide responsibilities: to manage a distributed team, it is important to have confidence in its members, and to establish well-defined processes. One good practice is to delegate tasks to different people in each sector, dividing up responsibilities to decentralize decision-making and contribute to transparent communication and information management.
5 – Offer team training: remote teams should be made up of qualified professionals who are compatible with the company’s overall culture and mission. Hence the importance of providing training which contributes to the personal and professional development of your employees, and improves the quality of their deliverables.
Make sure that everyone is able to use the required work tools, and especially the communication tools adopted by your company.
6 – Hold periodic meetings: remote teams require fixed processes and routines, with periodic alignment meetings so everyone knows which projects are in progress, and what needs to be done.
This contact is also essential to maintain positive relationships within the team, thus contributing to engagement, the exchange of ideas and the building of bonds.
7 – Encourage feedback: a feedback culture can be very positive for your team, regardless of whether the work is remote or face-to-face. This management tool contributes to the development of the team as a whole, and to the development of trusting relationships.
When working remotely, feedback can be hampered by distance, compromising the team. Holding periodic meetings to provide feedback on the attitude and deliveries of professionals is a good alternative.
8 – Respect established agreements: this means understanding the schedules of each professional, what their routine is like and what deadlines were determined for each task.
If your company has opted for the hybrid model, for example, stick to the agreed days when professionals will be required to go to the office.
Managing remote teams can involve other challenges, including:
- Loneliness: friendship and internal collaboration are key to any healthy team. To address this challenge, managers can schedule more team meetings via video conferencing and encourage the team to talk to each other and “get together” using collaborative tools;
- Employee distractions and time management difficulties: the trick here is to encourage your team to separate their work tasks from their domestic or social commitments;
- Challenging communication: it can be difficult to seek out a remote coworker to ask a quick question. To address this issue, consider using live chat applications;
- Trust your team’s commitment: a golden rule is to assume that your team members mean well when working from home, and are doing their best, just like you. Schedule a call or video conference if communication breaks down over email or chat.
With this in mind, here are some simple good practices:
- Encourage communication;
- Focus on engagement,
- Make room for collaboration;
- Encourage self-management.
Human beings are social by nature. We are attracted to each other, motivated by the need for community, communication and solidarity. Remote workers may find these essentials hard to attain, with a potentially disastrous effect on morale and job satisfaction. What can good distributed team management do to overcome this?
First, focus on individual interactions. Check in with team members frequently, once a day if you can, and let them know you are available. Don’t just talk about work – if the only time you communicate is to ask about the status of a project, then you’re missing out on an opportunity to connect with your coworker.
Get creative about how to set up regular video calls and how to best use that time to combat isolation and foster stronger bonds between team members. Similarly, take advantage of collaborative tools to encourage and foster connection.
Remote managers and employees should actively work to encourage transparent communication, including praise and constructive feedback, and to cultivate trust among members. This is the most important instruction for managing distributed teams.
