How To Hire And Manage A Remote Team

The industrial revolution brought people together: working on projects as a team, collaborating, and working together. This digital transformation became a default way of getting work done.

In parallel, tech advances Video technology, communication tools, internet speed, etc., accreted to the degree that many companies barely experienced a blip when the COVID-19 pandemic hit and when suddenly everyone had to work from home. While we got through the sudden shock, we are only scratching the surface of what’s possible with remote work- the scale effects it can create and the efficiencies it can offer in the organization.

Benefits of Remote Work for your Teams

As they ponder whether to permit remote work, team members find numerous benefits:

1. Cutting out a commute can be a huge time saver. Team Members will also spend less or no money on transportation.
2. One Stanford University survey found that employees who work from home will experience a 13 percent rise in productivity.
3. Working from home creates the possibility of a better work-life balance. This may seem a challenge in the current environment because of school and daycare shutdowns, but the remote work will stay long-term when schools will re-open.
4. Remote work reduces costs of facilities management, provides better coverage of time zones, and can provide more attractive employee perks.

So there are numerous benefits of working from home. What should managers do to ensure they enjoy these benefits and manage a remote team effectively?

Managing Remote Teams :

Recruit for success

You want excellent communicators, employees you would see as desirable under any circumstances. But remote interviews make it challenging to assess applicants. So how can you make remote hiring successful?

• Use of tools and services – Various tools and services in the market help you assess the candidate’s viability using various AI tools available.
• Ask for referrals – You can reach out to your employees for referrals when hiring remotely. Just describe the skills you are looking for in the candidate.
• Now the world is your talent pool. You can hire the best candidates from across the globe & pay them well to retain talent. You can pay remote workers from developing countries cheaper wages than most Western workers expect, but remote work allows employers to build a global team without worrying about the location.

Communicate Smartly

• Use chat for instantaneous communications that require a response within an hour.
• Email works well for issues that require more detailed explanations within a couple of days.
• Use phone calls or video chats for immediate person-to-person communications.
• Set up video meetings to address important mistakes or emergencies and to conduct “in-depth brainstorming.”
• Virtual meetings, like their in-office counterparts, also involve some meeting etiquette to keep in mind. Make sure your online presentations are crisp. Use presentation templates to ensure you communicate your message effectively.

Build Team Cohesion

• Don’t forget the human need to bond– It will take extra effort to do what used to occur naturally: bonding! Try Slideuplift Remote Team Exercises for ideas.
• Establish opportunities for face-to-face meetings – You and your remote workers will frequently communicate via videoconferencing software. Plan on meeting with each remote worker quarterly, if possible. If not, hold an annual meeting. Bring team spirit and morale.
• Winning trust is equally important- If you invest in your employees, your employees will, in turn, invest in the company. Showing that you trust your team with their respective responsibilities, team members tend to work harder knowing that their manager has their back. Don’t unnecessarily monitor them at small daily intervals to check whether they are doing their job. They may not take it in a positive light.

Manage Performance

• How do you measure the productivity of remote workers who aren’t salespeople? Don’t base your assessment on the number of emails or phone calls they generate or screen time. Tell remote workers you will support their performance and help them develop. Set their work specifications and goals based on deliverables and outcomes, and review them regularly.
• Managing across different time zones – Individual workers can operate separately and combine their efforts through techniques that don’t rely on working simultaneously on the same thing. The absence of a set schedule means people simply add their ideas to the ongoing job during the work hours of their choice.

Conclusion:

Working from home is becoming a norm nowadays; however, making it a success requires establishing a “communication structure,” which is vital for remote work success. For everyone to work well together, each person must also accept a common communication standard. There are multiple communication tools available depending on the needs. A remote work rule of thumb is that the “quality of communication” always matters more than the “quantity of communication. So make sure you communicate effectively using professional presentation templates to ensure all the remote stakeholders are on the same page.

Every company needs its plan for managing a remote team – Don’t expect to find a “standard” remote management plan. What works for a 10-employee company will not work for a Fortune 500 organization. Most “small to medium businesses” should establish a robust onboarding scheme, including meeting virtually with a new employee each day for their first two to four weeks with your company.