Managment Talks: Remote Teams

What is the real issue in remote teams? We’ll take a look at working in a remote environment and what that means for team collaboration. Remote teams are not a thing of the future - they’re today’s reality for many startups, as well as small and large businesses. And they might be the answer to a number of challenges in employee satisfaction and retention. The issue in a remote team is not the physical distance between employees. The issue reducing the psychological distance and increasing the cohesiveness of the team - challenges that all team leaders face, whether their teams work remotely or not. Remote teams might actually be the answer to a lot of problems businesses face. For one, you will not be limited to hiring people within a certain geographical area. You also skip the daily hassles of commute and give team members a certain autonomy over their working schedule - an important factor in motivation and job satisfaction. But remote teams also have to work extra hard at building a sense of community, shared expectations and values. Here are some tips to help shape the foundation of an awesome remote team and get stuff done together. Set high level goals and communicate them In any team, it’s vital to communicate expectations and to align everyone’s efforts to the same goals. By setting high level goals and clearly communicating them to your team, you ensure that everyone is working toward the same purpose. This way, each person can create their individual measurable and achievable goals that support the high level goals. Then each team member can go on and further break up goals into tasks. This is where communication becomes vital. Transparency is necessary not only so that team leaders are able to identify and address any gaps in the goals set by team members, but also so that the entire team can assess the impact of their goals on the overall well-being of the company and adjust their efforts when necessary. This will keep the entire team focused on the goals that really matter, and it’s a good way to communicate expectations. Keep your goals in writing Keep a history of all the goals, past, current and upcoming, as well as a history of all the tasks completed by your team member. They should be somewhere where all team members are able to access them, so they can reflect on their process and make adjustments where necessary. Emphasis on communication Communication is vital in any team, but even more so in a remote team. Aim to overcommunicate with your team members. It’s a thousand times better to have an excess of communication than not enough of it. Lack of communication causes so many frustrations in team members that it’s often hard to recover from it. Remote teams should aim for daily video calls. This will help manage the psychological distance they can experience. However, every communication should have a clearly defined purpose. For example, what's the purpose of your daily video call? Is it to simply share with each other what you’re working on? Or are you trying to solve a specific problem together? Get in some real face time Even in a remote team, it’s still important to get some real face time every now and then. Having a remote team is almost like having a long distance relationship. If you don’t see each other sometime, you might forget why you liked each other in the first place. One important time to see each other is the beginning of employment. This sets the tone for how the team members see each other, and how they will collaborate in the future. It also gives you an idea of how the new person fits on the team, and whether they truly align with your company values. Every now and then, schedule team retreats. Being together will create a sense of camaraderie among your team members. It will help build trust and as a result improve collaboration. Choose the right task manager It goes without saying that remote teams should always use cloud hosted secure products, so that the sharing of communication is frictionless. But this is even more important when it comes to task management. The right team task manager should ultimately reduce the exchange of emails and keep your inbox easy to manage. It offers transparency to what everyone is doing. It allows team members to have discussions over tasks. It keeps all attachments in one place.