Whether you see remote work as a temporary necessity or a crucial employee need, it’s your role as a manager to keep remote team members motivated and engaged. How you manage your team directly affects team performance and productivity. However, done right, remote team management can attract top talent, save you hiring costs, and build a diverse and vibrant working environment.
In this article, we will guide you through some simple, yet actionable steps to build trust and improve everyone’s engagement as well as performance.
Tip 1: Establish Open Communication
Ineffective communication is one of the key reasons for employee frustration. It’s the manager’s responsibility to lead by example: communicate effectively and as much as possible.
Consider sharing your daily agenda and status updates, and writing down all your key processes and guidelines.
Make sure it’s ok to stay in regular touch, ask questions, schedule extra 1-to-1 meetings, and communicate transparently on any topics.
#ProTip: Asynchronous communication can help get everyone on the same page with minimal hassle.
Tip 2: Set Clear Goals and Accountability
When your team is working remotely there is always the fear of losing control. Set achievable goals, or in other words SMART goals.
To make sure your goals are clear and reachable, they need to be:
- Specific - State exactly what you want to accomplish
- Measurable - Use smaller, mini-goals to measure progress
- Achievable - Make your goals reasonable
- Realistic - Ensure your goals are result-based
- Timely - Give your team time but set deadlines
When your team has clear and realistic goals they won’t feel frustrated or unproductive.
Remember, remote employees may not want to spend X hours per day working because they’re simply supposed to, and that's precisely the point of a flexible model! Set weekly goals to keep them aligned so everyone knows what they need to achieve.
You can use a project management tool like a Kanban board to get a visual understanding of everyone's progress.
Tip 3: Acknowledge Everyone’s Work
Trust and optimism are essential when working remotely, because the non-verbal cues driving positivity are often absent. So, managers who demonstrate confidence in their teams and the future, help their employees find meaning and purpose in work.
During your weekly meeting and team standups, make sure everyone feels valued. Try to highlight big and small achievements, bring up projects that are currently in progress, bring up recent wins to motivate and repeat successes. By acknowledging everyone's work you’ll make sure your co-workers don’t feel forgotten or unimportant.
If you want to take a step further, think of rewards to celebrate successes. It can be an online course, food delivery, some technology or home service perks. Whether you decide to offer any tangible rewards or not, remember, a few simple words of positive recognition can be incredibly powerful.
Also Implortant: Using the Right Set of Tools
In addition to your standard stack of tools, you might need some special software and apps to help your team members stay in touch. The challenge here is to use the least number of tools that possible while making the most out of the common ones that your team is already using.
That's why we use Gmelius, a collaborative platform that enables shared inboxes, AI-auto-tagging, team member notes, and email dispatching right inside of Gmail. Check out our video guides to see how Gmelius can help you manage your remote team.
At Gmelius, we also rely on Slite for process management. It helps us document our company processes in an easy-to-find and collaborative way. Last but not least, we use Slack which also integrates with Gmelius allowing us to communicate and stay connected across departments, allowing everyone in the team to work from their preferred platform.
Today, we are a fully remote and hybrid team, with talented employees worldwide, from Asia and Europe to South America. Remote work does not have to be less effective than working from the office. With the right mindset, company policies and processes your team will deliver great performance while staying motivated and organized.
Sign up for Gmelius to unlock the true potential of Gmail when you're working remotely.
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