Managing a remote team: 4 strategies for success.

It can be a challenge to get the best out of a team if you’re all working together in one office - but when each team member is working from home, it might seem overwhelmingly difficult. You might feel that there’s huge potential for things to go horribly wrong - a lack of supervision, problems with access to information or making sure team members have everything they need to be able to do their job. But if you build in the following four guidelines into your remote working strategy, you’ll set your team up for success.

1. Get the tech right
   Your people need the right tech to be able to do three things: to do their work, to communicate with each other, and to collaborate with each other on projects or processes. One of the great things about our digital world is that there are loads of tools out there to choose from, with most of them cloud-based, so there’s no annoying software downloads or syncing problems.
   
   For group or one-to-one communication, you might want to explore Microsoft Teams, Skype and Facetime; for file sharing, work processing and automation, try Zapier, Google Drive, Slack or Basecamp. Don’t forget WeTransfer for those chunky files.
   
   Make sure that each of your team members has the right equipment at home, and that their workstation is set up to minimise health and safety risks. If you need to send them equipment, check that the set-up instructions are clear.
   
   
2. Give clear direction
   When people are working from home, it’s easier for them to feel distant from company objectives, to get distracted and to become less effective at their jobs. Clear direction is the bedrock of team effectiveness. Clear direction:
   
   
   • Sets out what you expect from each person and the team as a whole, in terms of goals, deadlines, results, deliverables and outcomes. Clear direction means that everybody knows what’s expected of them, and what they need to achieve. Setting “Goldilocks” goals - not too hard and not too easy - are likely to motivate and engage your team members. As a guide, your goals need to be SMART:
     
     • Specific: clear, focussed and not open to interpretation.
     • Measurable: so you’ll know when you’ve achieved the goal.
     • Achievable: asking the impossible is demotivating.
     • Relevant: your people need to know why they’re doing what they’re doing, and that they’re doing the right things.
     • Time-specific: choose reasonable deadlines.
   • Clarifies and communicates your team’s goal and purpose. Having a shared purpose gives a sense of cohesion and community to your team.
   • Shows people how they should engage with each other. Ground rules or guidelines might include agreed uninterrupted work time, normal work time and downtime; whether people can contact each other ‘after hours” or how people should dress for a videoconference.
   • Sets out what people should do if they have a problem or concern, and reassures them that they have support and how to get it.
   
   
3. Be flexible and trust your team
   Just as in a “normal’ office, people respond differently to different management styles. Some need more contact and structure, others less so. For your team members who like structure, discuss how they might like best to structure their working day; how often they’d like to check in and what routines work for them. For people who prefer a lighter management touch, agree goals and objectives, and let them get on with it. When people feel trusted, they usually respond positively.
   
   When your people are working from home, it’s sometimes hard for them to get the physical and emotional boundaries between work life and home life right the first time. Family, pets and domestic issues can be distracting, so a flexible attitude is key to keep them motivated. Things happen.
   
   
4. Stay connected
   In an office, it’s easy to catch up over a coffee or around the water-cooler. Social chit-chat at work isn’t just fun, it satisfies a human need for connection. But when your team is working from home, that social connection is gone. If your work community is dispersed, that sense of belonging can dissipate. For staff who thrive on the office buzz, working from home can feel lonely and isolating.
   To keep your people feeling connected and supported:
   
   • Don’t use team video calls just for work-based conversation. Schedule ten minutes at the beginning of each call - or even separate calls - to catch up with personal news, and to discuss challenges. Share tips on how to cope with distractions and to solve problems together.
   • Organise a system of remote working buddies or peer coaching so that each team member has someone to talk to if they need it.
   • Make sure that you check in with each team member on a one-to-one basis regularly.
   • Show appreciation and recognition. A simple thank you is always appreciated, but it’s more powerful if you’re specific about why you’re thanking somebody. Gifts, personalised cards and other rewards are also meaningful ways to show appreciation. For added thoughtfulness and engagement, send out “care packages” to each team member. These can be anything from flowers to chocolate hampers, or something more unique.
   • Ring fence regular time for video socialising, with everyone invited. Organise a Friday after-work team social with a cheeky beer, a Wednesday coffee-and-cake session or a Thursday lunchtime pizza party. How about a quiz night using Kahoot? Ask your team for ideas on what they’d like to do.

Managing team members who are working remotely can be a challenge but it’s also an opportunity to deepen team connection and to create different and effective ways of working together.