An Ultimate Guide For Managing Your Team Remotely

There are lots of businesses that have remote workers, but since the pandemic started,  most of the businesses either closed or switched to work from home concept. 

Handling the team when they are working remotely is not difficult  

But for the managers who are handling the situation for the first time, it can be scary to do the navigation to keep the team productive,  engaged, and thriving. 

Well, to start with the team that can work even from work from home. And you can handle the people without getting tied up with many things. 

However, to manage your team, here is a guide that will help you. 

Common Challenges You Might Face In Remote Working 

To understand how to handle the situation beforehand, you need to understand that some factors will affect remote work; not just it makes it more demanding, but also the high performance and engagement might get declined. 

These things mostly happen when there is an absence of proper training, preparation, and communication among the team.

 Apart from these, here is the common challenge that you might face. 

Less Of Face To Face Supervision 

The common problem that occurs and not just the managers get affected by this but also the employees suffer is lack of face to face supervision. 

Supervisors feel worried that the employees might not do the task properly. Whereas employees struggle as they have less access to communication and managerial support.

In some cases, employees feel that they can’t reach their remote managers, and this out of touch makes them nervous about performing the work. 

What To Do: You can manage people by giving them a flexible time.

 There are some big differences when people work in the office and remote. And it’s important to understand those differences.

Issue With Access To Information 

The most common but crucial problem that employees face is not having access to information when it’s needed. 

It can be due to the coworkers or just a simple question that is taking too much time. The lack of mutual knowledge among co-workers gives a bad impression on how to handle the situation. 

For example, if a person is working in the same environment, He or she can see and understand that their co-worker is having a bad day. In this situation, if something happens, the employees are much more forgiving and understanding of it. 

But in the remote working scenario, people might not understand the situation of someone else. This removes the benefit of the doubt, which affects the team’s professionalism. 

What To Do: you can use the different software that gives you such access. Also, the right tools help you in sharing information to access. 

Also, you make yourself available so people can get in touch when they are confused

Distractions & Issue With Working Culture  At Home 

Every company has its working culture, but it’s hard to manage when people are working from their homes. 

In lots of seniors, either worker are with their family or pets, or someone else is working on the bed, sofas, etc. 

There are lots of examples where people are seen working managing their kids, and doing work at the same time. 

These are the problems that occur, and for the person who is managing them, it should be expected. 

What To Do: Aim for better time management, share tips, and help them to arrange their work. However, give them space if they have some important work to handle. 

Lack Of Touch With People 

There are lots of people who feel lonely when they are working remotely. It’s one of the common complaints and people miss the interactions they do when they are in office. 

This gets more if they are not having any other ways of meeting. Feeling such emotions for a long time also causes problems like feeling less belonging to the workplace. 

What To Do: To improve this, you can give people more options to get in touch. Also, you can do some free time, let your team have a great time together. 

 It increases the intention of leaving the company. 

Difficult To Hold Accountability 

The monitoring team is much easier if you do it in an office, but when managing the remote team, you need to understand how to build trust and keep productivity high. 

There are lots of things that you might be considering, such as what if your team is not working but spending time watching shows?

How you can keep productivity and manage them during office hours. There is no way to check them physically, but understanding the better ways becomes important. 

What To Do: One of the ways is to manage their time and set deadlines so they don’t skip. Avoid micromanaging, but also keep your team hyped up for the work. 

How To Manage Your Remote Workers  Effectively 

For a small business, there are challenges; however it is manageable if you understand how to deal with them. 

Also, working from home has its benefits that can be used during such a period. 

If you are handling this scenario for the first time, here are a few things that can help you in managing your remote workers. 

Start With the Right People 

Not every person can work from home. Some people can handle the distraction but keep themselves disciplined and productive when remote employees.

When making the team, make sure you pick those people who can do the work. These people are easier to handle and manage since they know how to work remotely. 

When you choose the right people, they have a positive attitude and motivation to perform the work. 

Here you don’t have to push them repeatedly to do their work. Also, it’s hard to do micromanaging everything for your employees. 

When you start with the right team, they don’t wait for the instruction; you will get the updates and assigned work completed on time. 

Define What They Need To Do Clearly 

Confusion is one of the common issues when people are working from home. Ensure your team knows what they are dealing with and their respective roles. 

Explain their work and set your expectations clearly, so they understand what work they need to do and when.

There is no better way than defining measurable goals and keeping them easy to understand. 

Keep Tracking The Progress 

Be sure that you are doing this daily, keep tracking how far your employees have progressed. With this, you can always step ahead and clear any problem before it arises. 

Also, it eliminates the chances of getting nasty surprises when an important day arrives. Get good tools and manage the process, also keep doing the tracking to stay updated.

Do Frequent Communications 

When you handle remote employees, keeping everyone on the same page is hard.  People are from different locations, and managing their work is messy if you don’t do it right. 

Also, since you are not in the office, you can’t just walk to them and discuss their problems. That’s why you need to keep the communication strong. 

With this, you can identify problems much faster and in an early stage where it can be managed or removed permanently. 

You can do emails, phone calls, or chats as team communication. Also, you can : 

• Use screen sharing for doing the explanation of important work
• Use the chat tools for doing the real-time discussion
• Schedule the meeting weekly to ask a feedback 

There are lots of apps that allow you to do better communication along with these features. For example, you can use Skype,  Google Hangout, Slack, and Hipchat. 

Measure Their Performance And Outputs 

If you want to get the most of the remote employees, performing and comparing the output is important.

At least do it once a month, it gives much deeper information about how your team is working and handling the situation. 

Analyze the time that you and your employees are spending on each task.  With this, you can use the data for measuring productivity.

You can also monitor the quality to understand the first time. With this, you save time and money that you might need to fix it. 

Important Factors To Build A Better Remote Team

When you switch to remote work, many problems cause, and you will need an effective team to handle such situations. 

When you have a good team, you can always be assured that your team will manage things independently too. 

So, to understand how to form a good team, here are a few points that you understand. 

Understand The Importance Of the Right Tools 

When you have the right tools, you can do a smooth operation and handle the work even if you are working remotely. 

With the right tools, you can manage the team and keep it on point efficiently.  For such work, you can consider using CloudDesk, as its helpful for  monitoring remote employers,

Also, you can do check-ins that need face verification and eliminate when employees cheat. 

Also, you can look for a productive time tracker to keep your employee-focused and productive. 

Consider Your Team Size 

When it comes to choosing the size of the team, there is no hard and fast rule. You can choose your team from 10 to 1000 people depending on how much you can handle. 

During the pandemic, companies like Facebook and Google turned to remote working. 

No matter what the size, some problems can occur. It can be collarabartion issues,  miscommunication, or meetings.

The easy way you can choose is to make policies so you can avoid such problems or can solve them if they happen faster. 

Choose The Setup Type 

You can find different types in a remote team, and it depends on how you are operating your business. 

The common types are divided into three different categories and are also mostly seen in the world. When you choose the team, you can choose the setup; it includes: 

Fully Remote Team 

The full remote team means everyone is working from home. The whole office, including employers to senior executives, all go remote. 

Here the company runs in such conditions. And the meetings are done by using video conferencing. 

The company uses employee monitoring software to manage teams and handle their employees’ overall work. 

Partial Remote Team 

Well, with this one, the companies have two different teams in their workplace. One of them does their work from home which means remotely. And the rest have to attend the office. 

This is divided according to the type of work and requirement of the presence of the workers. 

The team is divided so the people who can do their work from home can easily manage. Also, this allows the company to cover more work without investing too much. 

Partial Remote  Option 

This one is more like options instead of the type where companies give some days an option from which the employees can choose when they will do the work remotely. 

Most companies give once a week to choose a day for remote work. 

 Consider The Budget & Benefits 

When you are choosing a remote team, it’s important to fix your budget first.  However, in remote works, you don’t have to invest much and save money on real estate, office furniture, maintenance costs, supplies, etc. 

Well, it doesn’t mean you don’t have to spend money when you are choosing remote; you also choose internet allowance,  remote office setup,  and other plans. 

It’s important to understand where you will spend money and how to utilize it, so you get the benefits from it. 

The Preferences Of Your Employee 

You can’t pressure people to choose remote working or office. The research says lots of employers prefer working remotely anyways. 

According to the survey,  more than 37% of people prefer to switch jobs if they choose between office and remote.

Even though the stats say this, it’s important to ask your employee if they are comfortable with new settings. Also, make sure to ask for their opinion or feedback.

Tips To Manage Your Team Remotely 

To understand how to manage, you can also consider the important points. These tips will help in managing your team much easier and more efficiently. 

For managers, it’s important to keep their team up to date, check their work, keep their productivity boosted, and manage the work along with motivating them. 

Those companies working in an office can easily manage this; however, when you switch to remote, communication becomes an issue, especially when you have many people on the team. 

Here are a few tips to help you handle the situation better.

Keep It Flexible & Organised 

The important key that you should remember is to be flexible with hours. This will help in managing consistency. 

However, ensure you have a solid plan, as it will guide you and your team to achieve the set goals. But make sure your strategies are flexible when needed. 

Also, let your employees feel free to choose hours of work.  Whether they do their work in the morning or evening doesn’t matter. The important point is that they are doing their work and completing it. 

Make sure not to let the quality of work degrade and keep things organized to achieve it. 

Track The Process from Time To Time 

Tracking helps in keeping your employees managed and organized. This helps you to understand if your employees are working or slacking off. 

Assign the work to them along with the time they must submit it. For you, it’s helpful to manage their work as you get the structure to work with. 

Also, you are not in the office to surprise them, so give them space and trust that they are working. 

Set Expectations Often, And Early 

Setting up your project and team is important, but the most crucial step is providing guidelines,  boundaries, and rules. 

Some problems mostly cause when a lack of communication and access. That’s why you must be easily available when some of your team needs some help. 

Also, you can poutine other team availability and ensure to reach people to avoid any information. 

Keep your staff and work up to date regarding your policy.  You can easily communicate with people if there are any changes or tips. 

This will also help you maintain a healthy balance between life and work. 

Adapt Length Of Meetings 

Keep the meetings and feedback sessions short.  When you are working from home, there are lots of thighs that people need to do. 

It’s important to keep meetings valuable instead of keeping them lengthy.  Keep the focus on shorting things and taking less time.  

Not just for the meetings but also for other processes related to team resourcing,  scheduling, and action. 

Build Connections Among Team 

When people work from home, they feel isolated and disheartened. This is not just demotivating but also makes the work affected. 

Having a built connection is important to talk and understanding each other. It’s important to share positive feedback, do fun chatting, and spend time building a team. 

It can help people to feel like they belong somewhere and keep them interested when they work. 

Also, it’s important to keep the open door policy for remote employees. Keep yourself available so people can connect and share the problem. 

Resist The Habit Of Micromanaging 

There are lots of things that you might want to manage. Also, there is a change in situation and place. It becomes important for the manager to handle the situation and organize things. 

However, resist micromanaging. You don’t have to be looking over your team again and again.  And when you are working remotely, you should not micromanage. 

Trust your team and communication, and set your goals and deadlines. Keep the work product but don’t keep it too forced, either. 

Listen more 

Good managers listen; in fact, they do it a lot. They trust people and respect them. 

To manage your team remotely, it’s important to remember this. Make sure you listen to what your employees want to say. Do the feedback and take their points into consideration. 

When you are asking for feedback, make sure you do something about that advice. Don’t just talk and let it go; make sure you take their work seriously. 

Emphasize On Better Communication 

It’s crucial for managers to keep communication on point.  When you are managing your staff remotely, emphasize better communication. 

It’s important to have more ways and give options so the people can contact you and each other for a conversation. 

The best method you can opt for is to manage work by asking what your team wants. Also, help the employees better manage each other and work as a team. 

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

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