How to effectively manage your remote team

You can assemble a team of well-rounded talented individuals who have the capabilities to handle any task. However, for such a team to function cohesively, proper management has to be initiated.

Here are some tips to manage any team you assemble effectively.

Treat each person independently 

Strengths and weaknesses are identifiable in employees but these qualities do not come out clearly as you would expect. If you are a distant manager, one who pays little attention to the personal attributes of your team, it becomes difficult to identify their talents, strengths, and areas they need to improve on. To effectively manage your team, treat each employee independently, and know his/her limits and other personal aspects and attributes.

Job requirements delegation will call on you to re-examine just how well you know your employees. Some members of your team might prefer to wake early in the morning, others as the day progresses and others later in the evening. Understand your team, to know how better to utilize them.

Communicate as much as you can

When working remotely, communicating with your team as frequently as possible is important.

Whenever there is a task to be done, you need to communicate all the particulars of the task, when the deadlines are, the scope of the task, and its objectives.

Managers and team leaders need to encourage avenues for open communication. Your team should be able to reach you instantly, ask questions and get feedback from you without much hustle. Hold meetings frequently, including all your team members, and at times, have individual meetings just to check and make follow-ups regarding the various tasks, targets and projects at hand.

Put reliance and trust in your team

Casting doubts about the dynamics and abilities of your team is keen to kill the morale among team members. Treat your teams with the utmost respect and constantly remind them that they are important and that their contribution, no matter how small is vital.

Motivation does not necessarily come from expecting a financial gain, sometimes, the motivation employees need is to know that they are valued and appreciated for their input

Ditch your trust issues and personal feelings, be a leader, and trust in the capabilities of your team.

Set targets

Blindly starting projects or tasks without defining the scope, objectives, and expectations of each individual might cause a project failure.

Set targets for each individual in your team, and then set general targets for the team. It is important for your team to know that with expectations clearly communicated, you intend to manage them from afar.

For general targets, call the whole team, preferably virtually, and communicate the expectations.

For individual targets, call the individuals privately and issue the assignments. Ensure that the individual and general targets all aim at meeting the specific objectives for the task.

Organize weekly team meetings

One-on-one meetings with members of the team should be on a day-to-day basis. However, weekly meetings should be organized, where the entire team comes together to discuss the proceeding of tasks.

In such a meeting, the team leader should address issues affecting the team, the progress made, and other general targets expected to be achieved.

The meeting should be objective and should remain as professional as possible

Think about the outcome, not the activity

Team members will have different rates of performance. Some members are early risers and burn the late candle while others are not. As long as the work assigned to different individuals is being done correctly, then there is no point in defining how the work is to be done.

Allow room for creativity where members of your team get to explore different avenues when doing a task. Defining what to do and how to do it is highly bureaucratic and limits the use of personal judgment which is key in doing remote tasks.

Focus on the big picture, which is the result of the task, let team members ask you how to best approach a task, but let it not be something you must do.

Limit distractions

You have to provide a conducive environment as possible for your team to work on various projects.

One way of limiting distractions is by communicating with the team only when necessary. While frequent communication is important when working remotely, new information keeps coming out with every communication.

This might distract the work being done by employees. Other distractions occur when in virtual meetings. By nature, any attempt to completely eradicate destruction will be futile; however, you have to ensure there is little destruction to encourage efficiency among team members.

Patience and empathy go a long way 

Your team is built up of human beings who have flaws and shortcomings. Deadlines will not always be met because of other reasons beyond your control. The best quality one can have when dealing with a team of people is to practice empathy and show patience.

Being mindful of your employees does not mean that you let them walk over you. Set boundaries, seek explanations, and clearly assert your authority while at the same time being patient and empathetic to the various human misgivings we all have.

To sum up

The above is part of a list of endless practices to be employed for effective team management. As an individual, all you need to do is ensure that you minimize distractions, and time wastage and encourage proper organization. Through this, you are sure to get the best out of your remote team. 

If you want better team management, you can use Cubo which is a client engagement platform that helps freelancers and employees communicate and interact fluidly without needing to email or use various links to perform routine tasks. Interactions happen instantly through one URL; your personal online office.

You can plan and have meetings; you can chat and have quick briefs all in one platform. This makes it easier for you to track any conversations between you and any other member of your organization.

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