How to Efficiently Manage a Remote Team

Whether or not to embrace remote working has become whether or not to embrace remote working has become a daily discussion in most companies' h Zoom or Google Meet, creating a relaxed and safe environment where everyone can update the team on their progress, ask for help, or receive timely updates on company leadership decisions is crucial.

Establishing easy-to-follow processes and goals is also vital. Since it is difficult to gauge how much time someone has spent fulfilling their duties, focusing on setting concrete, easily trackable goals is paramount. Processes should be properly clarified, agreed upon by the team as a whole, and accessible to everyone through tools such as Evernote, Notion, Trello, or similar.

This level of communication means you should keep your employees more involved in company decisions, whether they are one-off adjustments or far-reaching actions. Creating small daily conversation spaces where everyone can express their feelings and opinions on how to handle the workload or expectations around it helps to build peace of mind, trust, and loyalty.

If you want to win as a team, let everyone be a champion

Compared to the traditional work model, remote work results in managers and supervisors having to be more individually focused than ever before. With the disappearance of general meetings in conference rooms or lavish announcements in the main office hall, the management model becomes something more akin to gardening or bonsai: a situation where, as a leader, you must ensure that each of your team members is flourishing individually and to the best of their ability.

Therefore, the role of a manager in remote work must slowly mutate into that of a mentor. The usual differences betweendemanding and suggesting, between setting firm goals and smooth agreements, never become more apparent than when the person you should be managing is milesaway. Empathy is, perhaps, the most vital characteristic to develop under this working regime.

Providing emotional support to your co-workers, allowing spaces where everyone can talk freely about theirday-to-day lives and any challenges they face, and organizing virtual meetings and parties are great ways to keep the team together and make them feel a senseof belonging. These are also perfect opportunities to congratulate the individual work of those members who have achieved their goals or become valuable pillars of the company.

This consideration should not be limited to performers, of course. Adapting to the remote work philosophy may be challenging for your company's less digitally savvy members. As a leader, you should consider educating them in this transition.

The regular training each employee should receive should probably include knowledge of digital productivity tools, time management, and schedule optimisation. Likewise, each employee's training path should be laser-focused on issues such as motivation, self-improvement, and any perks and talents that complement the day-to-day work.

All of these considerations, of course, will not be realized if you do not ensure that employees have the necessary infrastructure available to perform their jobs. Ensuring that the tools work on every computer, your employees are comfortable enough at home, and allocating extra budget to renew obsolete equipment, have ergonomic furniture, and ensure seamless connectivity is as essential now as it was in the pandemic.

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