14 Oct Leading a Remote Team – How to Keep Your Staff Engaged & Productive
There are all kinds of benefits to leading a remote team, including flexibility, freedom, and work/life balance. But establishing a remote workforce that doesn’t require constant oversight can seem impossible. How do you make sure that everyone is doing what they need to do? How do you help your team remain committed to delivering a quality product or service? Keeping a remote team motivated can be difficult, which is why we’re sharing our tips on how to keep your staff engaged and productive. The good news is that people are actually pretty productive once they get a work from home routine going!
Set Regular Meetings
We can’t stress the importance of regular meetings, where you can discuss everything from new tasks to weekly goals, as well as brainstorm. But it’s also important that you not only check in with your team but each individual. This doesn’t need to happen as frequently as a team meeting, but it will help you gauge how each person is handling their workload and create a connection. Make sure they are satisfied with their own performance and, if not, see how you can help or alleviate some of the issues that are causing them to be less productive. If they are encountered issues that stem from outside the workspace, then these personal meetings will also allow them a more private setting to divulge any problems.
Have a Project Manager (or Management Tool)
If you haven’t been sold on the impact of a good project manager, we’re here to stress that it’s a gamechanger. It will bring leadership and direction to your projects, ensure an orderly process, and help your team hone in on their objectives. However, a project manager doesn’t necessarily need to be a person. There are plenty of management programs that will help your team better manage their own projects. This can be a huge plus if you want to encourage personal ownership in projects by team members as well as making it easier for business owners wearing many hats. At Path & Compass, we prefer Asana since you can set tasks to repeat on a regular basis, which is especially handy for a business where work needs to be completed on an ongoing basis.
Use Shared Documents
Nothing crushes productivity like a task that can’t be completed due to an inability to utilize a required resource. Say a document, photos, or another business asset. This is a common situation that can and will leave your remote team frustrated and drained. For which reason, you need to use shared documents. Platforms like Google Drive and Dropbox make it a breeze to share documents, and easily request access when one is out of reach. Using shared documents, makes everyone’s workload much easier and streamlined, meaning they can stay engaged and productive.
Multiple Lines of Communication
When leading a remote team it’s impossible to expect everyone to be available to reach at all times. But it is reasonable to expect that they reply to correspondence in a timely manner. But only if they have the resources to do so. Virtual collaboration requires that you have several channels in place so that everyone can easily get in touch with one another. This being said, it is possible to have too many lines. You want enough that people have options and can choose the one that best works for them. But not so many that you, and everyone else, are having to check a dozen different platforms.
Running a business effectively and efficiently takes the right tools, systems & shortcuts! If you need help establishing a better virtual business and need tailored help to get your business back on track, schedule a FREE 30 min business evaluation & discovery call.