5 tips for managing your team remotely

Telecommuting: 5 tips to better manage your remote employees

Are you one of those who were apprehensive about the sudden shift to remote work and a potential drop in productivity for your employees a year ago? If so, experience and time have surely reassured you. Certainly, the opposite effect has occurred. Workers across all sectors have stepped up and been more productive in 2020. However, performance barriers can disrupt remote workers (bugs, lack of feedback, poor environment, work overload). As a team or company manager, how can you address these issues and provide the tools your employees need when working remotely?

This article is mainly based on the podcast of Bill Kerr and Joe Fuller, professors at Harvard Business School: "Managing the future of work", in which Michael Peachey, vice president of RingCentral is interviewed.

Tip 1: Understand and know your collaborators and employees

Adapting to their needs and valuing their work

Most of your employees seem to have managed to familiarize themselves with digital tools such as data sharing or videoconferencing platforms. However, they express special needs that you must meet as superiors. According to the Statista website: 51% of French employees working from home in 2020 expressed greater technical difficulties in mastering remote IT tools.

In the podcast, Michael Peachey explains how he helped remote workers stay connected by letting them choose the tool that was best suited to their needs. His responsibility was above all to support them in this transition by recognising that everyone's experience can vary.

Working remotely requires a different approach and requires more effort. Asking the right questions and finding solutions is essential. Also, valuing the work of your collaborators and employees, showing them interest, can instill in them the feeling of being truly integrated into a team, even remotely.

 

Tip 2: Use a resource planning for better performance

Better schedule management and time savings

Meeting your customers' needs is your priority. However, you spend most of your pre-sales efforts on tasks that don't add value and take up a lot of your time.

Resource planning and schedule management, revenue tracking and reporting can be combined in one single software. Stafiz is both an ERP and a Resource planning software. Using the platform guarantees enhanced performance and time savings so that your team members can focus on more impactful tasks.

The use of a planning and management tool resource planning helps reduce fatigue and stress related to long hours of working in front of screens and the many bugs encountered.

 

Tip 3: Keep your team connected and productive

Train your employees in digital tools

According to Neil Kidd, Team Development Manager, in this Welcome to the Jungle article : "Adapting means adjusting to new tools." Be in possession of a resource planning or digital platforms that make tasks easier is one thing, making sure the whole team doesn't waste time figuring out how to use them is another. Whether it's for the Stafiz solution or for other technologies you use, there are demos, online training, and resources that you can share with your employees.

Involving everyone equally

The digital sector offers the advantage of having a "portable" or "portable" career, in the sense that each individual can work from anywhere. That said, not everyone has the same amenities and a teleworker may find himself at a disadvantage vis-à-vis his colleagues in terms of his involvement in the missions or tasks to be accomplished. In addition, 57% of remote workers found it more difficult to communicate with other employees in 2020.

To unite his teams and maintain a social link during the lockdown, Michael Peachey invited his employees to connect to an uninterrupted videoconference every day, as if they were all together in the office. As a leader, creating that community at work helps stay connected and "emotionally healthy," according to Peachey.

According to this article : maintaining weekly meetings by videoconference helps maintain team cohesion if the speaking times are respected and if the meeting is based on a visual support sent beforehand. That said, let's keep in mind that the accumulation of meetings reduces productivity and causes fatigue. Let's know how to find the right balance!

Tip 4: Three soft skills to have

Emotional Intelligence and Empathy

Soft skills are essential to work today and for a manager, they are not negligible. Your employees and customers alike generally have high expectations of you. Empathy is surely one of the most sought-after qualities in a superior. Your employees work a lot and don't always let their feelings and emotions show.

According to Hospitality Insight EHL, emotional intelligence gives the other person the opportunity to express themselves with confidence and receive the expected advice and encouragement to avoid losing the taste for work or even falling into mental health-related problems.

 

Availability

" As a manager, check in on your team frequently and support everyone as a person. Don't just ask them about their to-do list, but ask them how they feel. We know it works, and we've seen relative winners and losers in the different industries we serve, depending on how internally an organization is connected" Michael Peachey, RingCentral

To rally your troops well, you have to be present and listen. By nurturing this social and emotional connection, your employees will be happier and more successful. The key is to know how to trust them and not to disrupt their daily tasks, which are usually interspersed with a number of meetings.

Enthusiasm

Stay excited! Show your employees that nothing is impossible and use your imagination to motivate your teams. It's a well-known fact that if the leader is in good spirits, the rest will follow – and consequently the growth of your company.

Tip 5: Inspire your employees to adapt to change

Be a resilient leader

In the podcast "Managing the future of work", learning by doing is discussed. Peachey explains that you have to start leading in a new way. Resilience partly defines this concept in the sense that adapting to the consequences of the Covid-19 crisis is key. Gaining this strength will allow you to shine through with the optimism and determination your employees need to continue to work productively and in unison with your goals.

Always set goals

Having a short- and long-term vision is the only way to get the results you want to grow your business. Setting goals, reviewing and adjusting them with your employees can only help them feel involved. Peachey explains that it's no longer about tracking progress and assigning tasks, it's about "bringing in the full power of the remote team at full capacity, compared to a leader who only gets half the power out of the remote team." These are the teams that will be successful and get the right projects.

Pushing employees to reinvent themselves

Finally, according to the Welcome to the Jungle article: "Leadership qualities are made up of a mix of soft skills such as decision-making, integrity, problem-solving, and the ability to teach and coach. These skills are obviously important for bosses and CEOs, but employees can also demonstrate leadership and, in doing so, become more autonomous, more productive, and more influential. »

For them, it's about being proactive, taking on new responsibilities, finding ways to stand out and be creative and innovative. A leader can inspire their employees to take the reins and instill that trust and level of commitment with these five tips. This is how managers will no longer have to wonder how to keep a team invested in the company's priorities.

In a world that is constantly evolving, we anticipate a collaboration between telecommuting and presence in the office for some employees. This experience is likely to represent greater difficulties. Peachey believes that this hybrid environment may not be fair to all, and those who need to work remotely are likely to be at a disadvantage in their search for career development. The question for managers about how to manage their teams and employees in this situation is already starting to arise.

 Read this article about Responsive Management