Due to the COVID pandemic, the workplace has undergone a massive change, causing millions of individuals to work remotely for their safety.

Several companies did not have a work-from-home policy on their agenda until the global pandemic forced them to adapt to these new management methods.

While many companies are successful in managing remote teams, there are still some team managers who struggle to manage remote teams effectively.

Remote Team

A remote team is a group of professionals from different time zones, with varied skills and cultures, working together on a single project. Each team member works from a different location, in different cities, and across different time and space.

When you are in charge of remote personnel, you are well aware of the issues that might come up with it, such as project management, team management, and keeping projects on track.

According to reports, “75% of virtual teams worldwide say that remote collaboration allows them to be more effective in their jobs”.

Challenges of managing remote teams

Team managers still get numerous challenges while managing remote teams, despite how popular remote working has become. Here are some of the difficulties that come with managing remote teams:

• Ineffective communication
• There is no way to track your progress
• Lack of trust
• Problems with call scheduling

Managing remote teams takes a different approach than managing people in the office. Here are some recommendations for managing your remote team better, more effectively, and more proactively in both long and short-term scenarios.

1. Set specific goals and objectives

Work towards establishing expectations. The employee’s responsibilities should be obvious to him. At the start of the project, the final goal should be discussed in depth. Furthermore, because the jobs are distributed among team members, they should be able to visualize what has to be created with ease.

Individual goals provided to team members should follow the SMART (specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and time-bound) rule. As a result, your team member must be clear on each task’s deliverables as well as the time required to complete it.

This also helps in analyzing team members’ performance and providing them with the necessary tools to achieve the desired goal.

2. Organize regular meetings

This is one of the problems of working with a remote team as everyone’s from a different time zone. But you can manage it. Meeting at least once a week and simply creating a warm and honest environment where everyone can talk about anything is the best way to learn what kind of people you have on your team.

For example, you can consider it as a virtual coffee.

Virtual meetings have many advantages. It makes no difference if the remote workers are on the road, at home, at a coworking space, or in an office. The goal is to log into the software you used for the office meetings earlier and relax for the next half an hour or so.

With the regular meetings, you will become closer as time goes on, and you will feel more like a team.

3. Take frequent breaks

Working long hours can be stressful, and as someone in charge of remote teams, you probably realize the importance of taking breaks.

Although some of your team members may not complain about stress and will have an impact on their work performance.

Encourage your team to take breaks from time to time, so that they can relax and feel refreshed. Taking breaks is one of the most basic methods to maintain mental wellness.

While managing remote teams, provide breaks to create a happier working atmosphere and encourage successful performance.

4. Get feedback from your employees

It is important to get regular employee feedback from your team to see if the remote team management rules are working properly. Feedback assists the organization in identifying flaws that need to be addressed.

Furthermore, this technique provides sufficient information to determine whether your management strategy is effective or not.

Final Thoughts

In these difficult times, being able to effectively manage remote teams has undoubtedly become the most important skill that any team lead or manager needs to have.

While this isn’t something that can be learned overnight. With the help of the above-mentioned tactics, you will find it much easier to manage your remote teams efficiently while also assisting team members in becoming more collaborative and productive.

If you want to know how your employees feel, Dropthought can help you to collect your employee’s feedback, create delightful experiences, and more.

Dropthought is a user-friendly, omnichannel, and real-time employee experience management platform. We empower companies in different verticals to create delightful experiences for employees across their employee journey. Get detailed analysis and insights from data to exactly know what your employees think and what actions you need to take to delight them.

If you are interested to learn more, simply click here.