3 powerful strategies to best manage remote teams
It’s not surprising that working from home is on the rise. With COVID-19 redefining what our jobs look like, more and more people are doing a day’s work from their home office.
Recent research conducted in April/May 2020, shows that over 4.3 million Australians (32% of our working population) were working from home during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Interestingly though, this flexible working trend was evident even before the pandemic, with ever-increasing numbers of Australians working from home, both full-time and part-time. Also growing is the number of people wanting to work from home, due to the flexibility and lifestyle that it affords.
The business case for working from home
Working from home is still a confronting and uncomfortable proposition from some organisations. However, the latest research tells a compelling story, with 80% of survey respondents saying they would be more likely to stay longer with an existing employer if they were provided with flexibility or remote working opportunities. In addition, 52% of respondents reported being prepared to forego a percentage of their pay in exchange for this flexibility.
While many businesses were forced to implement remote working arrangements out of necessity during the pandemic, benefits were soon realised, not only for employees and managers, but for organisations as a whole.
Benefits include the following:
Employees worldwide have reported that the biggest benefits of remote working include the ability to have a flexible schedule (32%), flexibility to work from anywhere (26%), not having to commute (21%), ability to spend time with family (11%), other (10%)
Remote workers are more willing to put in discretionary effort because they enjoy their work, compared to on-site workers
The opportunity to work remotely is associated with increased perceived morale, engagement, trust, retention, and collaboration*
A remote workforce expands the pool of high-performing candidates to the national and global market, not just local talent.
There are challenges, but they can be overcome
Although the benefits are undisputable, there are inherent challenges that come with managing remote work teams. To best do this, managers need to understand the difficulties associated with flexible work and create strategies to overcome these. But first, let’s look at the primary challenges.
Employees worldwide have reported that the biggest challenges of remote working include collaboration and communication (20%) (this includes collaboration with co-workers as well as supervision/support from managers), loneliness (20%), not being able to unplug (18%), distractions at home (12%), being in a different time zone to teammates (10%), staying motivated (7%), taking vacation time (5%), and other (8%).
In terms of workplace culture, one of the most potentially consequential outcomes of remote working is the missed opportunities for informal social interaction. Such interactions are integral in establishing trust and connection between co-workers and, over the longer term, these missed opportunities can lead to reduced perceptions of belonging. What’s more, a lack of belonging or inclusion at work has been shown to lead to lower productivity, engagement and innovation.
So, what can you do? Here are our 3 top tips for successfully managing remote teams – and they’re guaranteed to get results!
Tip #1 - Provide clear expectations regarding outcomes
It’s important for KPIs to focus on individual, team and organisational outcomes, not activity. This shifts the focus to achievements, rather than the number of hours spent ‘at work’ each day. By focussing on outcomes, and measuring performance accordingly, a sense of autonomy is created, which is associated with increased engagement and motivation.
In addition, consider setting output goals with specific timelines. These KPIs may be on a larger scale (e.g. quarterly), but initially, setting smaller goals (e.g. weekly or fortnightly), will keep team members on-track and help individuals to understand what’s expected.
Furthermore, employees embarking on remote working for the first time will experience a period of adjustment. It’s important to keep in mind that a new routine, environment, different distractions, etc may result in initial lower productivity. Although this can be frustrating and unsatisfying for you (and the employee), it is important to be patient, supportive, and continue to communicate realistic expectations openly.
Tip #2 – Create a team Communication Plan
One of the greatest challenges when managing a remote team is managing and facilitating communication. As teams are different, e.g. size, area of work, tasks being completed etc, so too must the communication strategy be. It can be a hard balance to strike. Communicating either too little, or too much, can be a common source of frustration, disengagement, and reduced productivity in remote teams.
The key is to consider your remote team’s communication needs, in consultation with them, and develop a plan together that addresses communication frequency, method, and timing. For example, you could agree to check-in each morning via a video call, communicate questions or queries via Teams throughout the day, and text any urgent matters after hours.
For a communications plan to be effective, every member of the team must understand and agree to it. This may include additional training on selected platforms, e.g. Teams or Zoom. As a manager, ensure your team understands how (best method) and when (availability) they can get in touch with you personally, should they need to.
A communications plan should not be a case of set and forget. You should be constantly checking-in with your employees to ensure the plan is working, that all team members feel connected, information sharing is streamlined, and departmental activities/actions are being adequately managed.
Tip #3 – Schedule in social interaction
Missing out on informal social interactions in the workplace is one of the biggest downsides to working remotely, both in terms of individual connection and inclusion, and the creation of a positive team culture. A key aspect of being an effective manager is building rapport with your people - getting to know them, understanding their motivations, and recognising what makes them tick. Furthermore, ensuring the team has good comradery and works well together, is one of the most valuable things a manger can do.
By scheduling in regular time for your team to interact socially, you can facilitate an effective and highly functioning team dynamic. There are many ways to do this, such as allocating 15 minutes at the start of your weekly staff meeting for people to share their weekend adventures or what’s happening in their life. Another approach could be sharing a weekly/fortnightly virtual lunch together, which is purely for social interaction (no work-talk). Or you could consider starting each daily check-in by asking employees to share a word that best describes how they’re feeling that day, or something that they’re grateful for from the day before (can be non-work-related).
Larger-scale activities, such as a virtual end of the month drinks and pizza event, can also be effective in keeping the team connected.
So, if you’re interested in learning more about managing remote teams, we have many more tips and tricks up our sleeve! We’re seasoned at advising organisations Australia-wide on how to effectively manage flexible work teams, including providing specific training for managers. So, what are you waiting for?
Want to ensure your flexible workforce is high-performing? Chat to us!
*MIT Sloan School of Management’s Executive Education Department