HOW TO LEAD YOUR REMOTE TEAMS?
Do you know that “Remote Teams” typically signify that, you either have a completely non-office team or a partial remote setup (physical office and remote employees)? But this model puts the spotlight on the team that works at the office rather than the team that works remotely. Instead, Anywhere Teams addresses all team members in a single voice. In this post, we discuss our tryst with leading and managing #AnywhereTeams!!
If you often worry about how effective your team is working, you are not alone! You may think that a quick team huddle in a meeting room can help to realign things. But what if your team works from Anywhere? A lot of Managers have apprehensions and concerns about where to start. But with the right approach and the right mix of people, you can lead your community to learn better, scale and make the impossible possible.
Recruit Anywhere loving personalities!
The key to having a vibrant and self-sustaining Anywhere team is to recruit people who are in line with your goals and resonate with your vision. Start by approaching communities where people from Anywhere interact. If you’re looking for a platform that doesn’t eat your budget, Reddit offers groups like telecommuting, remote work, and digital nomad among others where the best from Anywhere interact and share. For paid job portals that give you access to a global pool of talent, post a job at Workingnomads, Weworkremotely, and Remotive.
If you have narrowed down your choices, ensure that candidates you review are pro-Anywhere personalities by letting them take this test.
Invest time to know your team
Your Anywhere team does not have the regular coffee break/desk interactions or the hallway moments to bond. An effective onboarding process introduces them to your team and helps them understand how things work in your team. Surveys are a great way to find out what your new team member is like, analyze the skills they possess, the goals they want to achieve via simple Google Forms.
For those of you who are looking for inspiration, feel free to use our questionnaire.
Know your Anywhere team member better!!
Turn Meetings into a collaboration space
When working Anywhere, communication is vital. Don’t let your team members wait until you are online. Hold weekly 1:1 with your team members to discuss what their next project would be. Conduct daily check-in meetings to encourage team members to share task updates and impediments.
When you get new projects, host a video meeting with team members to find out who could contribute to the idea and how. Collaboration like this opens people up to new ideas and efficient ways to get things done. This can help you breakdown the project into simpler tasks and assign them to your team. With clear and simple objectives, your team becomes a self-sufficient unit that can get things done on its own.
Encourage regular Communication
Working from Anywhere can get a wee bit lonely at times, especially if the weather doesn’t allow you to step out. Remember the survey to find out more about your team members? Foster casual interaction where your team can meet to discuss offbeat topics, find out more about each other. Perhaps work together to create your official Spotify playlist.
Engaging effectively with Anywhere Employees
Sometimes, a change in the environment could be a good thing. Co-working space brings together people from different streams, working on different ideas and promises a good environment to break the isolation. If you have team members working in the same locality, co-working spaces can help them meet and discuss work. For starters, find a co-working space Anywhere using this website.
Appreciations and Recognition
Constant feedbacks are helpful to let employees scale their skills to better heights. 83% of employees appreciate feedback, positive or negative. Create a culture where recognition is public and relayed to all team members. Use creative means to post it in your team’s chat group or simply send a broadcast email. Canva gives you editable templates and a suite of easy-to-use tools. If you’re not big on customizing templates, use LinkedIn’s Kudos feature to give recognition to someone you worked on a project with.
Similarly, delivering negative feedback to the team member is best done in person. Schedule a 1:1 meeting and communicate it in a tone where you’re willing to work it out with them. Interact sincerely to regularly communicate feedback without having them pile up. The earlier you help your team members, the easy it is for them to work on the negatives. A healthy feedback system ensures that you institute a positive #AnyhwhereEnviroment with happy Anywhere workers.
Appraisals and review meetings
The tricky part of being an Anywhere Leader is to evaluate team members and review their performance fairly. With the right tools and clear communication, you can trace your team member’s contributions to projects easily. Project management apps like Trello, Asana, Basecamp and many others give your team a place to manage their projects and collaborate better.
How to communicate in Anywhere Teams?
Advanced reporting features help you track member contribution giving you all the data for better decisions. Online time tracking also gives your team the space to describe logged sessions and track time for specific projects easily. By embracing digital solutions, leadership and decision making for teams that work Anywhere become transparent and effective.
There are no set rules for leading a team and or one that works from Anywhere. But simple approaches can help shape a strong culture and empowers them to create a change from Anywhere.
Are you leading an Anywhere team and have experiences to share? Post your comments below for the world to see.