How to Get the Best from Your Team Working Remotely

Remote working or working from home has come to stay. It is no longer a trend but a necessity to work remotely. Even while the lockdown is being lifted from major cities around the world, the world can no longer go back to the old ways of professional life. 

This development has led CEOs, managers, and team leads to come up with innovative strategies on how to engage their team, to achieve the organisation’s success.

Here are a few insights on how to get the best from your team working remotely.

Have a daily check-in with your team

As a manager or team lead, daily check-ins are critical to working remotely. Utilize the various channels of communication to keep up with your team; face-to-face video call (zoom, Google Team etc.), phone call, email, and other task apps. 

Through these channels, you are able to follow up on assigned tasks and track progress.

Leverage technology

Leverage technology to keep your team engaged and productive. There are several communication tools you can deploy to make your work easier. Besides emails, phone calls and other communication tools, like Slack, Trello, Microsoft Teams are becoming more popular for collaboration and project management.

Manage expectations

Set realistic goals and expectations for you and your team. It’s great to be ambitious but also be realistic with your expectations from your team. Therefore, define the scope, deadlines, and deliverables for each task or project your team is working on. 

Communicate frequently

A lot can go wrong when there is inadequate communication flow among team members. Avoid assumptions on any development; ensure you communicate with your team regularly and update them on any changes. 

Communication could seem like the simplest aspect of remote work, but it could also be the most difficult and most likely to cause issues with deliverables if not well done.

Assign daily and weekly task

The best way to measure performance for a team working remotely is by setting daily and weekly tasks. Setting tasks has been a major win for remote work so that you can get more results compared to reporting to the office and not assigning any specific task.

Give your team the necessary tools and resources they need

Working remotely means having a mini office in the various locations where your team members are working from. Examples of what they will need are laptops, software, mobile devices, high-speed internet connection, or even alternative power supplies in some cases. Ensure everyone has what they need to work and deliver the tasks assigned.

Focus on results, not the activity

For a team that is spread across different locations, and in some cases different time zones, focus on outcomes and results instead of activities. Avoid trying to manage what they do minute by minute or the hours they commit to working. Your success as a manager or a team lead will come from the result they produce at the end, not the activities.

Be Flexible

Lastly, be flexible with your deliverables. It’s easy to expect that your team members will follow through with your conversations with them 100%, but this is not usually the case. Unexpected changes usually occur. Therefore, remain flexible.