Last updated on May 29th, 2023 at 09:17 pm
Over time, how organizations operate has evolved, mainly how and where employers work. The new standard is remote working, which is being adopted by many businesses. It is more prevalent among early-stage startups where every dollar matters.
Moreover, many companies are even hiring freelancers on a contract basis. These freelancers are also from anywhere in the world; therefore, not only is managing your remote team essential, managing these freelancers is also crucial for the company.
Furthermore, the benefits and drawbacks of remote working in different areas of a company are not the same. It has little impact on divisions that focus on individuals, such as sales. However, in collaborative departments like engineering or product, the benefits and drawbacks require careful consideration.
Are you ready to learn how to manage a remote team? Let’s get this started!
In this post, we’ll look at the tips on how remoting hiring can benefit every critical aspect of a business, including software development, freelancers, customer service, sales and marketing team, and project management.
What Do You Mean By A Remote Team?
A remote team is a team of employees who operate remotely from multiple places across cities, countries, and even continents. Remote workers now account for a significant share of the worldwide workforce.
Remote teams have several advantages for both the company and its employees.
Advantages Of Building A Remote Team
Here are key benefits of having a remote team:
1- Reduced Company Expenses
Lower company costs are one of the many advantages of forming a remote workforce. We have tightened our finances in these difficult times, leaving little room for non-essential tasks.
Building a remote workforce fits in wonderfully with this concept because it allows you to communicate with all of your coworkers while saving money on day-to-day office expenses. You can hold meetings, provide one-on-one assistance, and engage with team members through various engaging activities, all from the comfort of their own homes.
2- Increasing the Pool of Available Talent
Building a remote workforce has little impact on an organization’s day-to-day operations. However, it significantly expands the pool of available talent. If you believe a person is a good fit for the position, you can hire them regardless of their location.
Employees can work together online and contribute significantly more to the project. Team building enables people to work together to complete a task at their own pace, thereby saving time.
3- Increasing the Diversity of the Workforce
The best work culture may be found in a business with people from all walks of life. Remote team development helps you celebrate differences in geographical regions, race, gender, and other factors.
You may cultivate deep relationships with your employees and help them achieve their full potential. Employees acquire the awareness of one another and learn to embrace and work in a diverse environment due to remote team development.
4- More Engaged Workforce
Your employees will be more involved with the organization due to virtual team development. They can talk, communicate, and do tasks at their leisure.
While working from home can make it tough to focus, team building allows employees to work together, break the ice more quickly, and collaborate to achieve their objectives.
You can remind people of the good times they’ve had in the past and make sure you’re there for them during these trying times.
5- Happy Employees
The average employee is willing to take pay cut in exchange for the ability to work from home.
When it comes to day-to-day work, you may provide your staff with flexibility with remote team building. Teams are free to work at their own pace while discussing, collaborating, and achieving goals.
Burnout can be caused by working under tight deadlines and following rigid work schedules all of the time. Virtual team building allows teams to work together without adhering to strict work hours.
Challenges Managing A Remote Team
Following are some key challenges:
1- Lack Of Communication
Managing a remote workforce can pose several difficulties if you don’t manage your team properly. Communication is one of the most notable of these.
When your workers work from home, things are a bit different. While you can walk up to anyone in person at work, things are not the same when they work from home. As a result, you’ll need the proper communication tools to assist you in getting your message through.
Unfortunately, many firms lack the appropriate communication technology, causing employees to be unaware of their daily duties, meetings, and other critical information.
2- Transparency And Visibility Are Reduced
Having a remote team often reduce transparency and visibility because your team members are not aware of what others are doing.
Furthermore, arranging their work schedules can be difficult if your staff is spread out throughout the country. If your team members are in different time zones, the problem worsens.
3- Differences In Culture
Dealing with employees from other cultures is another common issue. The premise is that cultural, linguistic, and other differences in a global workforce must be considered when interacting with them.
These variances can impact employee interactions and result in task completion discrepancies. It can also lead to team resentment and diminished productivity in the long run.
As a team leader, you must be aware of this and ensure that all team members are given appropriate responsibilities without regard for cultural familiarity.
4- It’s Difficult To Keep Track Of Staff Performance
The first step to manage a remote team successfully is to ensure that your staff does their tasks effectively.
How do you know they aren’t merely coming in and leaving their desks? While you must allow your staff to operate flexibly, you must also ensure that they complete their tasks on time.
Make sure your remote staff members are using their time effectively and efficiently. It’s best to have an open line of communication in which you’re clear about your expectations, and your employees’ work is transparent.
5- Employees May Be Disengaged
Reduced involvement is one of the drawbacks of working in a remote workplace. Working in a physical office is, on the surface, a friendly and enthusiastic experience for some employees. On the other hand, a remote team does not have in-person meetings, entertaining physical activities, office lunches, and other benefits.
All of this can contribute to a drop in engagement. Workers frequently feel excluded from the organization, resulting in low morale.
Apart from completing projects and responsibilities on schedule, you must ensure that your staff is involved in your organization. You can use some team-building exercises to improve communication and assist people bond with one another.
How to Manage a Remote Team Efficiently
1- Identify and Hire the Top People
The most excellent part of expanding your startup is that you’re not limited to the talent pool in your immediate area. You may cast a wide net to identify the ideal people for your company, no matter where they are located in the world.
Even though the pool of candidates for a remote job is likely broader, the purpose of hiring for a remote job isn’t all that different from hiring in person. In the end, you’re still entrusted with discovering, screening, and interviewing talent; the only difference is that you’re doing it online.
2- Select and Implement the Appropriate Remote Management Tools
You’ll need to supply the necessary tools to get your remote workforce up for communicating like a pro.
At the very least, the list of toosl should include:
- For official contact, use the company email address
- Slack or Teams can power day-to-day internal messaging
- For high-quality, dependable video calls, use Zoom or Google Meet
- For cloud file storage and collaboration, use Dropbox or Google Drive
- Use Trello or Notion for project management
Once you’ve decided on a remote tool stack, you’ll need to incorporate it into your onboarding process, making sure that each new hire is comfortable with the ins and outs of each platform. Also, you should invest in tools to boost cybersecurity of your remote team.
3- Be Willing to Engage in One-on-one Interactions
When faced with a problem or need help, employees in a remote working environment are sometimes hesitant to approach their manager or a colleague. They will attempt to tackle the complex problem independently, but this will take time and may result in work not being completed on time.
Encourage employees to ask for help whenever they need it by creating an environment where they don’t hesitate to do so.
It isn’t easy to discern how someone is feeling when communicating online. Encourage video talks to be conducted one-on-one. Give good feedback, keep an eye on any problems they’re having, and ask for input on the company’s remote working policy.
4- Conduct Regular Performance Evaluations
Regular performance reviews are an essential part of any successful company, but they’re crucial when you try to manage a remote team.
A remote performance review gives a defined, structured touchpoint for each employee to reflect on their work and performance and look ahead to their next period’s goals and objectives once you’ve set expectations and clarified what success looks like.
Furthermore, performance reviews provide a forum for your employee to air grievances or give you candid criticism on how they’re performing.
5- Concentrate on Communication
It’s challenging to create a company culture inside a remote team. However, by maximizing communication, you may create an environment that eliminates practically all of the barriers a remote team faces. As much as possible, communicate with the team, and urge them to do so.
Furthermore, implementing Cisco phones can provide seamless and reliable communication channels, empowering remote teams to connect effortlessly and fostering a strong company culture.
Working from home does not necessarily imply having the freedom to work whenever someone wants.
While flexible working is beneficial, it is still necessary to impose restrictions and constraints on employees to maximize their potential and ensure everyone is working in the same direction.
6- Make Your Own Virtual Water Cooler
Slack’s “virtual water cooler” has been a terrific method to communicate with coworkers outside of the office. It usually includes the following:
- Food/what we ate — Photographs or recipes for what your teammates make at home or eat out.
- Random movies, photographs, and stories from their daily life — for example, a current event or anything significant that is taking place in someone’s city/neighborhood/etc.
- Travel and Hobbies — Because they are a remote firm, many of them spend a lot of time in other places. Hence, ask them to share photos of their staycation.
- Workplace Inspiration — This is also where you exchange examples and ideas for something fantastic they see another firm doing.
- Fun Facts, Stats, and Stories – When they come across a fun fact, statistic, or story online, they can prefer to share it.
7- Attendance and Time Zones
From the start, talk about working hours, vacations, deadlines, timetables, emergencies, etc. Meetings and job deadlines should be scheduled in advance. Ensure the entire team is on a conference call regularly (every day or week) to help them feel appreciated and avoid them feeling isolated, regardless of what schedule each of your employees follows around the clock. At the same time, give your team considerable leeway in decision-making.
8- Set an Example for Others to Follow
You can’t merely pay lip service to the critical concepts of remote working if you want to build your startup remotely. You must live, breathe, and eat communication, collaboration, and trust, putting them into action.
Of course, there must be a balance made. You must have faith in your employees’ ability to work independently, but you must not forsake them. You also need to keep lines of communication open, but you shouldn’t micromanage and get involved in every conversation or collaboration.
Conclusion
As technology advances, so will our working methods. Although remote work may not be ideal for every firm, we believe it is here.
Many multi-billion dollar companies like Meesho, Swiggy, Airbnb, and many more have given employees the flexibility to work remotely. Follow the strategies mentioned above to manage a remote team efficiently.
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