This pandemic has urged companies to shift into remote work due to social distancing and strict government protocols. This is why remote teams have been growing among companies, aside from having physical offices.
The problem is remote work presents challenges in management, especially for companies who are not used to it. In fact, there is still an office style in remote work. However, some protocols should be adjusted differently for remote work. You can also hire a dedicated software development team form 8allocate to make your remote work easier.
If you’re tasked to manage remote teams, here is the guide for you. We’ll go through different ways to deal with remote teams.
What is a Remote Team?
A remote team involves people from different time zones, skills, and cultures to work together for a specific project. Hence, working remotely is ideal for this setup.
It’s an entirely different style from people working in front of the office. With a remote team, you need to keep them on track to submit the project on time.
Indeed, there are many things to consider in remote work culture. While most people work in offices, few immediately adjust to remote work. Hence, these are some evidence why it has become a preferred method of working:
- According to PR Newswire, ConnectSolutions says that 30% of remote workers can finish their work in less time.
- 82% of the employees say they have lower stress levels
The Challenges
While there is satisfaction in employees working remotely, there are times that the management can be doubtful if they are working. The process involves connecting with people in different countries and cultures through video conferencing or communication tools.
Thus, these are other reasons why it can be pretty challenging to shift into this kind of setup for the management, according to Forbes:
- Face-to-face has diverted to video conferencing
- Lack of accessing the information
- Work isolation
- Home distractions
- Problems are escalated due to existing silos
Dealing With Remote Teams
Fortunately, all challenges can be dealt with once you know how to act on them, similar to remote work. Hence, we will run you through in dealing with remote teams:
1. Make Use of Communication Channels
According to Dialpad, it’s easy to ignore communication when working remotely. That’s what you should encourage communication when dealing with remote teams.
As a manager, create effective communication between your employees. If some work in an office, and others at home, using a communication channel will keep you updated with the information.
You can quickly know what is happening individually or as a team. Using communication channels such as Zoom, Trello or Slack will allow everyone to be transparent in their work.
While it can be uncomfortable to use these communication channels, everyone will get used to them over time. Thus, your employees will feel less like they’re isolated.
2. Embrace Diversity
As with any management, it’s essential to establish team buildings. However, cultural obstacles happen when your remote team comes from different countries. As a result, it could affect the project and divide the teams.
There is a simple way to unite different nationalities from your team to avoid misunderstandings and conflicts. As a manager, find out how they want to receive feedback and celebrate wins. You can also encourage celebrating differences and respecting national holidays.
3. Follow the Results of Teamwork
It would help if you tried to check everyday performance. What are the key success indicators for each task? We advise you to set these indicators in such a way that you can easily and quickly understand (in a couple of weeks, not 6 months) whether each member of your team is productive.
4. Pay Well for Your Team
Many people want to work remotely, and many professionals are willing to pay less for the opportunity to work from home. While this is true – you can find people willing to work for less money – but if you pay your employees well, you will be guaranteed that your team will do a great job and stay with you for a long period.
5. Build Remote Social Events and Interactions
You might have heard of Virtual Netflix Party, Pizza Parties, or celebrating wins. While at first, it can be a bit inauthentic and unnecessary, research shows that these virtual events work.
When it comes to encouraging virtual interactions, try not to overdo it. Make sure to prioritize scheduled meetings on Zoom or Skype. Then, if there’s still time in a week or a day, dedicate time for non-work-related activities.
7. Do a Quarterly Review to See How Your Remote Team Members are Working
One of the challenges in managing remote employees is feeling lonely and isolated. Not everyone is good at this style of work, and most people don’t have this problem and love the freedom of working from home. But you can check their result from time to time to make sure they’re successful.
8. Inspire Colleagues with Videos
Remote employees may miss the feel of the corporate culture. It is challenging to create and maintain culture through the spelling of words. It’s much better to create a video and use video conferencing services like Google Hangouts. Also, it is helpful in record conferences for future employees. Use video as a way to inspire your team and reinforce core concepts about the company’s culture (such as your vision and mission).
9. Develop virtual friendships
Don’t forget – your remote team is real people who, like everyone else, need communication. Employees can communicate and interact outside of work, but it’s also great to meet these needs with virtual work. In my experience, this is especially important in jobs that don’t have a lot of communication, like some software developers.
The Takeaway
There’s no need to worry about managing remote teams since there isn’t any need to.
You can implement the tips above to your new remote team for successful project deployment. It would be as if your team is working in an office.
Whether you’re managing a small or large remote team, there’s a way to make your home office more interactive and productive. Apply the tips we mentioned above to adjust to your new working environment.
Rhydian Choi 
Nicola Holder