Many companies were forced to accept remote work due to the pandemic in order to improvise on their remote team strategies.
Now whether there’s a pandemic or not, major companies all around the world have continued the growth of remote work side by side with their physical offices/stores.
However, there are many aspects that play a major role in the success of remote teams.
Our guide will uncover different challenges that arise with remote work and also give you the best tips on managing remote teams successfully.
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Challenges That Come With Remote Works
The fact is that remote work doesn’t actually come with completely new challenges.
In an actual sense, many in-office team management concepts also apply to remote work.
It’s just that the following problems get aggravated when it comes to managing your remote teams, that’s all.
- Lack of effective communication
- Managing and respecting everyone’s time
- Time zone differences
- Hiring new people without the traditional hiring process
- Dealing with a lack of support within the team
- Difficulty to clarify tasks and roles
- Cultural and language differences
- Clarifying schedules
- Problems with tracking employee performance
- Ensuring everyone’s part of the team
5 Top Tips To Manage Your Remote Teams Successfully
It is the team manager’s responsibility to make sure that the team is not facing any difficulty.
If you are using platforms like Discord, it is very convenient to get more members for Discord servers to build your team. But the team manager’s job is to support, guide, and nurture each team member accordingly which is a fairly difficult task.
So here are 5 top tips that’ll help you manage your remote teams effectively.
1. Use Necessary Tools for Clear Communication
One of the biggest setbacks a remote team faces is communication.
With the absence of face-to-face interaction, it gets difficult to explain tasks perfectly in one go.
When communicating with your team you need to be clear and concise to avoid confusion.
Take help from any necessary communication tools whether it’s a zoom video call or making a discord voice chat group.
2. Inform Your Team Clearly of What’s Expected
When working from home, employees shouldn’t feel left out on what is needed and expected from them.
Whether it’s remote work or office work, all businesses have some set of expectations.
Informing your remote team about these early on will increase their focus.
You should clarify what is expected in terms of –
- Working hours excluding breaks
- Timely availability
- Communication tools they can use
- Timely attendance in meetings
- Projects with priority
- Deadlines
- Timely response to calls or emails
3. Embrace Diversity and Cultural Differences
You can also come across managing team members with different cultures. Many managers fail to even have a concern regarding this topic.
If you as a team manager fail to acknowledge cultural differences then the team may fall apart due to a lack of understanding and conflicts between team members.
To manage international team members or members from different parts of the country, understanding their perspectives and work ethics should be a priority instead of trying to fit them into your own way of working or thinking.
4. Respect Employee’s Personal Time
As a team manager, it’s your job to outline and follow time boundaries for specific team members depending on where they live and what are the circumstances.
If someone lives in a place where time zones are different, any unnecessary emails, company notifications, or chat messages can ruin their sleep or take away from their family time on something that can be solved later on.
Let them know that you care for their personal time by setting suitable work times for each team member.
You may also encourage team members to update their status with their own country flags.
This will make it easy for team members to understand time zone differences before calling someone an unsuited time.
5. One-on-one Interactions are Highly Necessary
Team group chats are really good but that doesn’t mean one can talk about every issue in front of everyone.
Talking to team members individually is still as important even if it’s remote work.
Team members will be able to address any issues they are not comfortable sharing in group meetings.
Remember that this doesn’t mean discussing issues via email as it can create misunderstandings.
It’s your responsibility to call each of them individually to listen and solve their problems.
Also, read about 8 Practical Tips on How to Pay off Your Student Loans, How to Get into Digital Marketing Without a College Degree? & How Much Should You Save Today to Have Enough Till Retirement.
Conclusion
In a clear sense, it is up to you to decide what steps are necessary to manage your remote team.
For instance, many small businesses are able to build good relations and put faith in the remote team while others have to rely on tracking software to make sure people are working.
One really good piece of advice is to think of managing remote teams as helping people succeed instead of imposing strict rules and procedures to reach your goals.
When people in your remote team are not bound to unnecessary rules, the team will surely grow stronger as time passes by.
