Is Remote Team Good for Your Business Model?
Don’t rush calling it the living nightmare! Every Project Manager, specialist or newbie, can tell you that collocation such type of running business forces fast heart beating. Considering that not everyone can work far-off the work place and not each manager is able to lead the distance team.
So, here’s the main question: why it could be a good idea? And how can you stay a great manager for your team? Here’s our useful article with advice and more!
Risks of Managing a Remote Team and How to Deal with them
Of course, managing the remote team is not troublesome, but this process has a lot of pitfalls a good Project Manager should remember about.
Feeling as Outsider
Managers should understand that feeling outcast is an emotional reaction to the absence of communication and people can feel themselves outcast even in the office. And isolation associated with access. The isolated persons can’t get everything they need. They think their development or achievement are ignored, and they become on the sidelines of the business.
Use video calls as much as you can
I always said to my teammates “I should see your eyes” and this is with an ulterior motive. People use verbal and nonverbal communication in the complex. But Professor Albert Mehrabian after non-verbal research concluded that only 7 percent verbal and 93 percent non-verbal, and it includes eye contact, body reaction, facial expressions, muscle reaction on the face gestures, posture.
So you can appraise the reaction to changes in future plans or just have taped about the mood of the person this day. Video can tell you more than audio-calls and much more than chatting.
Breakdown in the communication
Communication is key to a person’s soul. Especially in the working process, when people have the one goal: project to be done… peacefully. But often managers forget about this rule and don’t give sufficient attention to the employees working beyond the office. It could cost you misunderstanding, missed opportunities, unnecessary conflicts, mistrust, and even low morale.
Don’t forget about the small talks
This is the introduction part of each conversation, it can be shorter or longer, everything depends on the situation. Speak about families, hobbies, free time, weekends and even about dogs or cats.
Demonstrate that a person is interesting for you not only in the working process but also in conjunction with their life background. You should care not only about the work that was done, but also about a person’s mental health and well-being.
Real Life meetings at least once a half-year are necessary
The positive energy from these meetings will stay with your squad a long time after the meeting. And this is an exclusive chance to discuss a bit about vision, future, interests, culture, traditions, etc.
Missing the tracking program
For the working process without losing productivity project managers should choose the right program for accountability. This program should be convenient and each participant of the working process should understand how to use it.
Choose the right PM software
The work of your team will be more productive if they will have all needed instruments in one place. This means you should have the right tools which help you to rely on project tasks, plans and even on people. The features right software should have:
And a lot of other things you may need. Just analyze the capability of the tool and choose the one that will cover all the cases you need.
Asynchronous schedule
With different time zones, sometimes it is very hard to set the working schedule. How don’t lose engagement, unity, and productivity of the team? At first – don’t try to work 24/7 – we are all humans. At first speak with all teammates and set a consistent schedule trying to consider each person.
No Respect of the personal time of the team
It seems that remote employees should be in touch 24 hours/7 days a week. But this comment is wrong. Respect the working time of your colleague. Set the working schedule and disturb your team only during this time (excluded force-majeure circumstances).
Set borders
As a result of various time zones it is problematic to set the schedule that will be suitable for the full team. Someone’s message can disturb the sleep of another person or ruin the day with parents or family. You should speak with each person in your team and specify the most convenient timetable.
Virtual Open Door… but not really
As exists the “open door” policy in the office between the management team and staff, also this policy should be implemented for a remote squad. You should show that you are open to questions, discussions, and communication.
Be Team’s Rock to Hold On
Don’t turn down an employee who needs your help. This is a great chance to establish a personal connection. Providing help will increase the level of trust and strengthen your position as a manager.
Also in this process, you can understand teammate needs, carry out an analysis of the personality, know more about the person’s life and interests, etc. As you can notice this time is designed not only for providing help but also for communication and small talks will help you.
Having Doubts about your Team
We heard this sentence not once. The stereotype that remote employees sit the whole day in pajamas and work only several hours a day isn’t true. Obviously, they don’t wake up at 6, get the shower and do their work from 9 a.m till 6 p.m, they even can do the job at night but no doubt these people do their piece of work.
Set expectations, roles, and responsibilities
Be clear with the expectations from the first meeting and till the end of the collaboration. People should know their roles on the project and the scope of work he/she should do.
You should provide the teammates with their responsibilities, inform about deadlines, availability, tools, main projects, and timely meetings.
Tools for Effective managing of remote team
How to Break the Walls and Hire the Remote Team
Basically, you should raise the question: Are you really ready to work with the team from a distance? You should learn about each underlying potential problem because as you see work with this team is quite different from the work with an office-based team. If you are ready then identify what type of work it should be absolutely remote, work from different offices, with a flexible schedule, or work from home.
Then you should write the job description, choose the right candidates and hold an interview.
What skills must have this candidate?
The main part of managing in a distance should start from managing yourself because if you can’t organize even your working process, the managing of the remote team couldn’t become successful.
Surely, this article is just a part of a big process of the managing remote team. I hope it will inspire you to hire the remote team once. Yes, managing such a team requires changes, but at the same time, it gives you a great plus and allows you to gather a strong team with high-level professionals.
We at Challengesoft company want to say – build the trust inside the team and be friendly, whatever your team is remote or office-based.