Rules To Live By When You Manage A Remote Team

Team Remote team
  • Most employers who run a remote team are challenged with the same issues that surface in different ways:

  • Keeping workers motivated

  • Maintaining open communication

  • Being sensitive to a multi-cultural team: Knowing the challenges will help you better prepare for a growing remote team. Here are our rules to live by when your office spans 2,000 miles.

  • Keep the convo neutral

  • By keeping the conversation clear with neutral language, you’ll avoid miscommunication or mistakenly offending a team member. To keep the conversation clear, try:

  • Video chat: Skype or Facetime, if time differences allow, will help incorporate body language for a clearer picture of what you’re saying.

  • Monitor your tone: Emails are especially dangerous when it comes to sending the wrong tone. Be mindful of your words, punctuation, and closure to build a friendly, professional tone.

  • Take your time: If a text, voice mail, or email upsets you, take a moment before responding. It may be that you misread or misunderstood the message,& responding in frustration only make matters worse

  • Respect the work day

  • Work-from-home warriors tend to blur the lines of the work day and personal life. Be cautious that you don’t put that pressure on your remote team.

  • Set expectations

  • While you must be respectful of your team’s workday, it’s crucial to set expectations early. Guidelines for communication, productivity, teamwork and accountability build expectations for your team.

  • Availability: Whether your team members work part-time, full-time, or contract hours, it should be clear which days of the week they should be available.

  • How to communicate: Decide whether video conferencing, email, text message or a project management tool will be the main form of communication for your team.

  • Meetings: Decide when you will hold your team meetings. Make sure everyone is available at the desired time and communicate the platform the team will use to meet.

  • Email response: What is the expectation for a timely email response for your team? Five hours? One day? Set the expectation for email responses so projects don’t fall through the cracks.

  • Implement systems

  • Systemization will help hold your remote team together, especially when you are juggling multiple projects.

  • Here are our favorite systemization tools:

  • Slack: Communicate with your team and your client’s team from anywhere and actually keep the conversation organized with Slack.

  • Asana: Fit all the pieces of a project together and rearrange them when needed so that you can still meet your deadlines.

  • Evernote: This is your digital notebook. Reduce the need for paper by using Evernote to make lists, take notes, or jot down ideas.

  • Offer positive feedback

  • More than two-thirds of employees say they would work harder if they felt their efforts were better recognized. Don’t underestimate the power of positivity.

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