Is My Remote Team Happy? How to Know if Your Remote Team is Calling Out for Help.
Remote work has become the hottest commodity since toilet paper during the pandemic.
Many companies were immediately thrown into a remote work environment, causing in-person managers to scramble to learn how to continue to maintain their team’s performance, overall happiness, and well-being.
Do You Manage a Remote Team?
Remote work can be exceptionally demanding and stressful.
Your team may already include inactive and dispassionate members. Tossing them into remote work, hands-off, no-one-is-watching environment, can greatly impact their engagement and success overall.
Understanding the hardships and challenges that come with remote work, and creating your specific leadership plan that actively understands these hardships and challenges, will help you navigate the remote work life, avoid pitfalls and disengaged employees, and create a team that is not only high-performing but sustainable long term.
Creating this effective leadership plan enables you to perfect, grow, and sustain a high-performing remote team that not only smashes deadlines, but creates meaningful connections where unity, loyalty, and passion for the company, AND the work, are never in short supply
Pros & Cons of Remote Teams
Although for many remote work has been a dream come true, there are still challenges that remote teams face.
Remote Work Challenges:
No face-to-face supervisors
Solitude from the team - i.e. Social Isolation
Team Members who are already unhappy in their positions may experience a heightened sense of dissatisfaction – each grievance they have toward their position seemingly becomes magnified and impassable
Information Shortage
Distractions
Remote work isn’t all bad! Remote teams also present a handful of positives:
Employees experience more freedom in their daily lives
Mental health and wellness can become a focus and a highlight for your team
No Commute!
Less office politics and office gossip
Increased comfort levels - leading to more productivity
Stronger coworker bonding and communication
How Well Do You Know Your Team?
Managing a remote team can leave you feeling like your team is distant and you don’t connect very well – if at all.
One of the key components to managing a successful and sustainable team is to know each member individually.
Learning the ins and outs of your team will enable you to:
Assign tasks accordingly
Focus on growth where needed
Maximize training and streamline the onboarding process so that your team not only feels equipped with the proper equipment and tools, but ready to take on the tasks they are assigned
Knowing your team not only creates a sense of team spirit and camaraderie, it also lets your team know that you truly care for their experience, their growth as individuals, and their overall health and wellbeing.
Don’t let your team feel left out, isolated, and misunderstood.
Without them, you’re the one pulling the extra weight.
And now you’re the one who’s stressed out, isolated, and completely taken advantage of.
What type of leader are you? Take my 5 Voices Quiz now to find out!
Once you’ve completed this quiz, you will reveal what type of leader you are, what aspects of leadership you champion, the most effective methods you can use to empower your team, what percentage your type of leader makes up in the population, and the pitfalls of your leadership style – all in an easy-to-access results layout!
What Does Employee Engagement Look Like to YOU?
Do you expect your team to punch in and work with little to no supervision?
Do you expect your team to use your inter-department messaging board consistently?
Do you want to keep tabs on tasks and productivity?
Is your remote work software accessible, easy to use, and statistically proven to help your team succeed?
By ensuring that your team not only feels comfortable with your remote software, and also knows how to use the software to the best of their abilities, you will be setting your team up for long-term success.
Do you celebrate victories and problem-solve when your team is stuck?
Employee engagement is a massive part of sustainability.
When your employees aren’t ‘feeling it’ with their work role, want nothing to do with the rest of your team or the other departments, and avoid all work-related meetings or get-togethers, there may be some red flags that need to be addressed.
Ask Yourself: Is It Me?
By analyzing your leadership style, you can better understand exactly what you need to manage your remote team the most effectively.
Don’t let miscommunication lead you astray, keep in touch with your team!
Schedule weekly one-on-one meetings with each individual team member. And don’t miss these meetings!
Missing 1:1s without rescheduling can leave your team member feeling like they’ve done something wrong, you’re avoiding them, or they’re in trouble.
Keeping an open lane of communication regarding your intentions AND their performance will enable your employee to relax and put in serious effort towards some serious results.
Schedule monthly team meetings so that your entire team gets the chance to hang out and meet one another!
Building an office-like environment, without office politics and drama, can help your remote team feel like they’re a part of an in-person team again.
These larger meetings will encourage engagement and ease the isolation of working from home alone.
Incorporating an annual face-to-face meet and greet for your team will heighten team bonding and provide the opportunity for you and your team to do some awesome team-building activities!
Set expectations for your team and follow through on these expectations.
Communicate the boundaries you’d like your team to follow.
Promote Diversity! Inclusivity is key.
How Do You Re-invigorate Your Remote Team When Productivity Starts to Slide?
What do you do when your team isn’t performing how it used to?
Encourage your employees to focus on their health and well-being – including mental health.
Your team’s health, including mental health, and wellbeing should be at the forefront of your concerns. Incorporating virtual yoga, healthy meal incentives, and walk/run/hike challenges to encourage healthy competition between your team members may be ways that you can encourage your team to prioritize their health in a fun and inclusive way.
Schedule updated and regular training sessions.
If mistakes are being made, and you feel that your team should know better, schedule a training. Ensure that no one feels targeted or spotlighted, and keep everyone on the same page.
Policies change. Training your team to follow these updates will make them stronger.
Micromanaging
Just don’t.
Keep tabs on your team, schedule your 1:1 meetings, and shed a spotlight on each individual’s victories, but don’t bombard them with nit-picky tasks that often build up and become overwhelming.
Communication is KEY.
Communicating via online platforms comes with its challenges and trials.
Know your team and learn how they respond to your communication.
Learning how to communicate online will enable you to lead your team to the best of your abilities, and ensure that miscommunications are very few and very far between.
Worried that your remote team isn’t benefiting or responding to your leadership?
Altitude Training offers 50 guided training sessions that enable YOU to become the leader you’ve always dreamt you could be!
Research Citations
“6 Ways to Keep Remote Workers Engaged.” Business News Daily, https://www.businessnewsdaily.com/7228-engaging-remote-employees.html.
Falcone, Paul. “Creating and Sustaining High-Performing Teams in a Remote Work Environment.” SHRM, SHRM, 22 Nov. 2022, https://www.shrm.org/ResourcesAndTools/hr-topics/organizational-and-employee-development/Pages/Creating-and-Sustaining-High-Performing-Teams-in-a-Remote-Work-Environment.aspx.
Gleeson, Brent. “13 Tips for Leading and Managing Remote Teams.” Forbes, Forbes Magazine, 12 Oct. 2022, https://www.forbes.com/sites/brentgleeson/2020/08/26/13-tips-for-leading-and-managing-remote-teams/?sh=3c15958d577b.
Kashyap, Sandeep. “A Manager's Guide to Manage Remote Team.” ProofHub, 25 Feb. 2022, https://www.proofhub.com/articles/managing-remote-teams.
Masters, Anastasia. “Engaging Your Remote Team: 9 Tips to Avoiding Isolation.” Employee Recognition and Company Culture - Bonusly Blog, Bonusly, 21 Jan. 2021, https://blog.bonus.ly/engaging-your-remote-team?utm_term=&utm_campaign=%2AKB%2B-%2BSearch%2B-%2BDSA&utm_source=adwords&utm_medium=ppc&hsa_acc=8535404906&hsa_cam=14410137833&hsa_grp=126811235216&hsa_ad=541434173419&hsa_src=g&hsa_tgt=dsa-19959388920&hsa_kw=&hsa_mt=&hsa_net=adwords&hsa_ver=3&gclid=CjwKCAiAzKqdBhAnEiwAePEjkhKacX7EkbbqIH9ElolLQhifmnS72ButJ0Z4Qo69s67AmUBYjcWbhxoCk6wQAvD_BwE.