To get all this to work and flow smoothly, much of the onus is on you, the team lead. That’s true whether your team is colocated and huddling in a room together, or widely distributed and huddling virtually in a Zoom meeting. When your people are in the same room together, small talk and building loose connections is relatively easy. With a distributed team the challenge of connecting requires deliberate investment in time and energy.
Measure engagement regularly
Regular career catch-ups are a results-driven way to manage a remote team as you’re able to build employees’ trust and connect with them on a personal level. Your remote workers, in turn, will be able to share their personal goals and objectives for your brand. Set up one-on-one weekly or monthly meetings with each virtual team member you manage. Jumping on Zoom calls with your employees for career talks is a great way to manage remote teams. There are thousands of managers and team leaders who have suddenly found themselves managing remote teams. One of the best parts of working with other people is getting to know them personally.
Despite the overall flexibility provided by the work-from-anywhere model, remote workers can also experience major downsides of this approach as well. A general lack of in-person communication with teammates is one of the key factors that impact remote workers’ mental health. Most often, people working remotely can struggle with feeling alone, isolated, and left out of important company conversations. This is most commonly evident in comparison to in-office workers in organizations applying the remote-friendly model.
You should also recognize and reward your team members for their achievements and contributions and celebrate their successes. By empowering and motivating your team members, you can boost their confidence, satisfaction, and performance and retain their talent. Continuous learning is essential in the fast-evolving world of business today. For remote teams, this means providing accessible and relevant training opportunities.
Seven essential practices for leading remote teams
Let your employees know you put people first by allowing some non-work-related chat. Ask questions and show interest in your teammates’ lives and wellbeing. Additionally, organizations can set up AMA chats with executives to let new employees get to know the company CEO. This practice can help new employees feel more connected to the organization’s mission, vision, and better understand and resonate with the values it promotes.
A great startup employee doesn’t necessarily make a great remote startup employee.
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Don’t equip one team member with something different if they perform similar tasks to another employee. Plan to pay employees and independent contractors to attend virtual team calls and meetings. Often, these managers are surprised when freelancers and contractors aren’t readily available for calls and meetings.
Giving employees access to ongoing training and development isn’t something new, but Millennials in the workplace have re-emphasized the importance of doing so. Building a remote team isn’t just about the initial planning, recruiting, handing out of laptops, and telling your employees to get on with the job. Some businesses have a Bring Your Own Device policy for remote workers, which means those employees use their own computers and other personal devices. However, not everyone can afford good-quality or new tech, so it really is better to supply your team with the equipment they need.