Many businesses are working from home in these uncertain times. To ensure this is effective for everyone involved, it’s important that we understand how to effectively manage a team remotely.
Here are a few basic guidelines to consider in order to maximise results in these uncertain times.
- Ensure every team member is clear on what is expected.
Making sure you have set clear expectations is important to ensuring your team stay on track and achieve what you need them to. Many will find it very different working from home, and may have the added challenge of having school age children at home who need attention and support. There are several ways to do this, whether you share calendars, show examples or use a task-management software, it’s important that your team know what they are expected to achieve when working from home.
- Identify outputs rather than activity
Avoid micromanaging. Demonstrate your support and trust for team members and focus on outputs. This makes it easy to identify when challenges occur as milestones slip and can be addressed quickly.
- Increase the quality of the communication: Switch from phone to video wherever possible
Colleague can feel isolated, and may surprise themselves that they get more done (less interruptions than in the office), and for the line manager remembering that relationships are critical is important. , Working from home can make it harder to communicate, and in today’s world of business, luckily the technology exists to help improve communication. Zoom and Microsoft teams are two that work very well for video and sharing documentation live.
- Trust your team to deliver
This is not the time for micromanaging, so being explicit that you know they will do their best given all of the current challenges is important. The trust you demonstrate in them is likely to be rewarded and may even prompt people to work harder. Stay flexible in your approach, and look at it from each team members’ perspective; what do they need from you to make this work for them?
Every team will have its own issues and obstacles to overcome when working from home. If you’re interested in learning more about how to effectively manage your team remotely, get in touch. During this crisis we can offer telephone support. When normality returns, our executive coaching programmes facilitate providing business leaders with new competencies on how to monitor, motivate and manage their teams successfully. To find out more, simply call 01594 564803 or email bevcouzenseec@gmail.com.