10 Effective Management Practices for Leading a Remote Team

Working with a remote team may seem more challenging than working with an in-office team. However, if you have experience working with remote employees, you likely won’t find it too difficult.

On the other hand, if you are just starting out managing a remote team, then you should definitely prepare for this task that you will take on for the first time in your life. To help you, here are the ten most effective management practices for leasing a remote team.

Photo by Chris Montgomery on Unsplash

#1 Over-Communicate, But Don’t Micro-Manage

Communication is by far one of the most essential things for a successful remote team. This is why it is much better to over-communicate instead of having poor or insufficient communication. That being said, you shouldn’t equate communication to management. Once you start doing that, you could end up micro-managing all your employees’ activities.

Of course, you might have a very strong desire to ensure that everything runs smoothly. It is natural for leaders to want to keep an eye on everything and anything. But if you start trying to manage your team that way, you could end up making things much worse for everyone, yourself included.

#2 Take Advantage of the Tech Available to You

Technology is your best friend when you are managing or leading a remote team. That’s precisely why you need to take advantage of the tech available to you and use it to its fullest. This includes both software (e.g. project management app, professional messaging platform) and hardware (e.g. headsets, high-performing laptops and PCs).

When deciding which tech to use, don’t forget to brainstorm ideas with your team and determine what works best for everyone. For example, there are two popular project and task management tools that are loved by many professionals – Trello and Asana. Instead of making the decision yourself, ask your team members what they think and which of the two they prefer.

#3 Build Relationships on Trust, Loyalty, and Empathy

When it comes to building relationships between you and your team as well as between your team members, you should always prioritize trust, loyalty, and empathy. These three components will help you build relationships that will last a long time and that will create the foundation for your business to prosper.

Firstly, you need to trust your team members, they need to trust you, and they also need to trust each other. Secondly, you and your team members should all be loyal to what you do – the mission and vision you all share. Thirdly, you need to empathize with your employees while they need to empathize with you and each other.

#4 Set Clear Expectations and Realistic Goals

Expectations and goals are both important for successfully leading your team because they help you motivate your team members, work together moving in the right direction, and assess how effective your efforts are. Consequently, you need to set clear expectations and realistic goals for your team and for each employee separately.

To help you with planning and goal-setting, you can hire professional writers from the writing services reviews site Trust My Paper. Having an outsider’s perspective on what you want to achieve and how you plan to do it will allow you to be more objective about what you can actually do and achieve.

#5 Focus on Outcomes Instead of Activities

Speaking of setting expectations and goals, you should always aim to focus on the outcomes instead of activities. When you focus on activities (i.e. what your employees are doing), you forget what your real aim is (i.e. what is the result of what your employees are doing).

There are very common problems that arise when leaders focus on activities over outcomes. Such leaders start to micro-manage their employees and even overwork them. On the other hand, when you focus on the outcomes, you can work together with your team to find the best solutions for specific problems. In other words, you can work smarter, not harder.

#6 Update Your Communication Strategy

As explained earlier, communication plays a critical role in the success of your remote team. So instead of trying to work and communicate the way you did before, you need to update your communication strategy now, and start working in a different way. Here are some things to do to achieve this:

Create a Meeting Routine – The best way to ensure that you have enough meetings and everyone comes prepared for them is to create a meeting routine.
Schedule Recurring One-on-Ones – Meetings are necessary not just for your team, but also for each employee individually, so make sure to schedule recurring one-on-ones in your meeting routine.
Have Check-Ins for Ongoing Projects – Ongoing projects require continuous attention, so you need to schedule check-in meetings for each specific project.
Host Short Meetings More Often – Rather than having longer meetings that are few and far between, opt for shorter meetings that are hosted more often
Use Multiple Communication Methods – Diversify your communication by using text messaging, emailing, voice and video calling, and so on.

#7 Enable and Encourage Remote Social Interactions

Besides communication, you need to enable and encourage remote social interactions between you and your team as well as between team members. This will help you build better relationships and improve teamwork when working on different projects. Here’s how you can enable and encourage such interactions:

Include More Breaks Throughout the Day – Allow employees to create their own schedules and make sure that there are enough breaks included throughout the day.
Encourage Virtual Cooler Conversations – Cooler conversations happen naturally in the office, but you need to encourage these virtually for your remote team by letting employees talk over video or voice calls during breaks.
Provide Resources and Remove Obstacles – Create opportunities for your team members to shine both during work and during breaks by providing them with resources and removing obstacles for them.
Organize Virtual Team-Building Activities – Team-building activities, even when done virtually, can be ideal for bringing your team members closer to one another and helping them become a more successful team.

#8 Develop Policies and Guidelines for Standardization

To keep everyone on the same page at all times, you need to develop specific policies and guidelines for the way your employees need to handle different tasks and situations. At the same time, developing such manuals can be helpful for standardization and for maintaining high quality across all your activities.

If you don’t know how to create such policies and guidelines, you can hire experienced writers from the custom writing reviews site Best Essays Education. Keep in mind that you don’t need to standardize absolutely everything, but you definitely need to have guidelines for critical situations as well as routine procedures.

#9 Show Flexibility and Make Everyone Feel Included

As mentioned above, you need to allow your employees to create their own schedules, but you should also show flexibility in other aspects as well as make everyone feel included. Here are some ways to do this:

Understand Every Employee’s Perspective – Empathize with their situation and find solutions to their problems together.
Involve Your Team When Hiring New People – Ask what your current employees think about the candidates you have chosen before actually hiring them.
Become a Mentor Rather Than a Manager – Instead of always acting as a manager, try to be more of a mentor to your team.

#10 Celebrate Successes and Reward Employees

Last but not least, always celebrate the successes of your team and reward your employees for their achievements. Acknowledging these successes and achievements is one of the best ways to show that you value your team and want to see them do all the amazing things they are doing.

Pay out bonuses, provide employees with extra vacation days, and give them gift cards to their favorite brands. These are just a few examples of how you can celebrate successes and give out rewards, but you can definitely find even more options of this kind.

Conclusion

To summarize, managing your remote team effectively involves a variety of techniques that you should use together for maximum results. Take note of the tips in this article and decide how you can start managing your remote employees more successfully.

Wanda Lafond is a professional content writer, copywriter, content strategist, and communications consultant. She started young with her writing career from being a high school writer to a university editor, and now she is a writer in professional writing platforms— her years of expertise have honed her skills to create compelling and results-driven content every single time.

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