Remote Working: Managing Your Teams Efficiently?

Remote work and hybrid working offer many benefits, both for employees and their employers.

However, this advantage offered by a growing number of companies also represents a new challenge for managers. Mobilizing and motivating teams without seeing them on a daily basis, while ensuring that the work gets done, is far from easy.

In this article, you’ll find 4 tips to help you manage your remote employees efficiently and stress-free.

Benefits of remote work

Despite the challenges it presents, remote work does have its benefits. Here are just a few examples:

• Reduced costs (especially for office space and travel)
• High levels of employee satisfaction and commitment
• Access to a wide talent pool for companies (employees can work from anywhere in the world, and the company appears more attractive)
• Increased employee productivity and creativity

4 tips for supervising your teams remotely

1. Think about remote work when recruiting

A new dimension to consider and evaluate when interviewing candidates is their degree of ease and affinity with remote work.

Validate their interpersonal skills

When you’re recruiting for a position that requires frequent interaction with customers, you’re going to give preference to people who naturally have excellent interpersonal skills. If you want to hire people to work remotely, make sure they have the qualities that will enable them to excel in this type of position.

To do this, ask them questions about the work environments in which they have felt fulfilled and those that have been most problematic for them. If they have freelance experience, ask them more about it or about their role in geographically dispersed teams.

Do a test run

If possible, you can also ask them to complete a simple task related to their position. This will give you an opportunity to see how they do their job unsupervised, how they search for and share information, and whether they are able to meet deadlines.

Validating values

Finally, pay particular attention to the candidate’s values. It’s important that these are aligned with your company’s culture. Indeed, employees who work remotely generally have very few opportunities to “absorb” the company culture in person.

From the outset, make sure your codes of conduct and values are in line.

2. Supervise with respect

One of the most frequently asked questions and fears about remote work is “How do I know for sure that my employees are really working?”

The answer is simple: you can’t know.

Just as you can’t know whether everyone in your office is equally focused on their professional tasks.

A person sitting in front of a screen in your 9-to-5 office can just as easily spend their time distracting themselves on the Internet as a remote worker. One of them will simply do it more discreetly.

The importance of trust

Any working relationship is based on mutual trust. If you have to manage people remotely, resist the urge to check what they’re doing at all times. When you call them unannounced, you may be interrupting their workflow and slowing them down. Even a few minutes’ interruption can have a negative impact on their productivity for the day.

Make sure you have scheduled times when you can discuss everyone’s progress and requests. Outside these times, find out from your employees when and how they prefer to be contacted.

3. Schedule meetings and “face-to-face” time

One of the disadvantages of remote work is that it’s difficult to spontaneously exchange ideas, advice, and learning or to establish a good quality work life. Creating synergy within teams is also more complex.

To overcome these difficulties, it’s essential to provide regular opportunities for your employees to exchange ideas.

The aim is not just to follow up on tasks done and to be done but also to create a time to build and nurture your company’s own vision together.

Meetings are also the perfect opportunity to build momentum and boost morale. You could, for example, invite everyone to share their big and small victories of the week. It’s a learning opportunity for everyone and shows your team that you value them.

When planning your calls, also consider offering your colleagues the option of joining in via video call. Seeing your co-workers’ facial expressions helps improve communication while giving you an opportunity to take the pulse of your team’s morale.

4. Take isolation seriously

Whatever their personality, all human beings need to maintain a certain level of social interaction to be fulfilled. For remote workers, there’s no chatting, impromptu discussions, or friendly exchanges over the coffee machine.

The burden of loneliness with remote work

Loneliness can be a burden for some employees. In addition to affecting their productivity, isolation also affects your colleagues’ morale and health. Burnout and a desire to leave the company are also consequences of this loneliness.

Communicate more (and better)

• As a manager, you have the opportunity to make a difference by ensuring that your communications with each member of your team are as “human” as possible.
• Beyond their professional lives, consider “talking to them about anything and everything”. This will also help you build stronger, longer-lasting relationships with those around you.
• Another good practice to adopt is building and maintaining communities outside work. Try to find a common interest among your team members and get together to discuss it. This could mean going to the movies, meeting up at karaoke, or enjoying a glass of good wine once a month. Networking and nurturing professional relationships shouldn’t just be done with people from other companies.

Professional relationships are first and foremost human relationships that require trust, kindness, and nurturing.

Back to face-to-face work?

For some companies, the honeymoon period with remote work and/or hybrid working is well and truly over. Some companies have opted to return to 100% face-to-face working, while others are continuing down the path of hybrid or 100% remote work…

It’s hard to decide which is the best option, as each model has its own advantages and limitations. Ultimately, every company is unique, and what works for one may not be appropriate for another.

So, it’s up to each organization to define the formula best suited to its objectives and its employees’ expectations.

Other sources:

https://www.fastcompany.com/90289857/how-the-era-of-the-remote-worker-complicates-management

https://www.fastcompany.com/90263240/5-best-practices-for-managing-a-remote-team

https://www.fastcompany.com/90240532/how-to-make-your-remote-workforce-feel-appreciated

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