As we take our first tentative steps into a strange new post-pandemic world, it is clear that remote working is here to stay.

Companies across the globe are realising the many benefits of remote teams, including lower overhead costs, more flexible hiring opportunities, and an autonomous and self-motivated workforce.

Working with a remote team can be challenging. However, by promoting effective communication and collaboration strategies, remote teams can be efficient, productive and successful.

Here are a few tips to help you better manage your remote team.

Maintain visibility

Transparency is a key factor in your remote team’s success. Creating clear guidelines for what is expected from team members and what they should expect from the company is essential, including:

• Collaboration standards and company policies – Set expectations by establishing the culture and the ground rules up front. This may include guidelines and documents for remote workers detailing what the expectations are for their work, how to communicate with other team members, instructions on how to report errors and conflicts, and other company protocols.
• Clear project goals and milestones – For example, through weekly check-in meetings where team members get together to discuss their progress on projects and goals from the week before, as well as what they plan to accomplish in the next week. These meetings are not only useful for communicating tasks, but also for providing each other with feedback on any issues that might have arisen in the past week and acknowledging anything that was done well.
• The tasks and responsibilities of each team member – Avoid missed tasks and uncertainty by ensuring that everyone knows exactly what they should be doing.
• Availability and workloads – Sharing calendars helps teams keep track of one another’s work hours and capacity.

Establish communication standards

Efficient systems of internal communication help to keep everyone on the same page, leading to a more organized workflow and reducing the need for time-consuming meetings.

When managing remote teams, it is essential to establish clear channels for different types of communication. For example:

• Microsoft Teams or Slack for quick messages, team discussions or social interaction
• Email for longer communications that do not warrant a meeting
• Video conferencing for daily stand-ups, weekly check-ins, and team meetings
• Project management tools for task assignment and project-specific feedback

As much as remote tools help us to stay connected, there is also the danger of communication overload. Being assaulted by a cacophony of pings, rings and buzzes from various sources is not conducive to productivity.

Be sure to make time for uninterrupted work by allowing staff to specify offline focus blocks to get work done.

Set clear boundaries to promote a healthy work-life balance

In a Work from Anywhere era where technology creates expectations of constant accessibility, the divide between home- and office life is steadily eroding.

When ‘getting off work’ means walking from your home study to the living room, it can be very difficult to make the mental switch between office hours and personal time. For many employees, this can result in a sense that they are never truly off duty.

According to Mental Health America’s 2021 Mind the Workplace Report, 1 in 4 surveyed employees are experiencing severe signs of burnout, with 83 percent of respondents stating that they felt emotionally drained from their work.

To preserve a healthy work-life balance within remote teams, it is important to set clear expectations around working hours and response times for digital communications. This may include setting guidelines around:

• Turn-around times for specific communications, e.g., 24 hours for emails
• Expected work hours (accommodating for different time zones)
• Expectations for sending and responding to communications outside of working hours – this could include establishing company-wide accepted acronyms, for example NNTR (No Need to Reply), RWA (Reply When Available), etc.
• Escalation and response protocols for emergency situations or urgent communications

Keep an eye on employee well-being and mental health

While some employees adapt well to a work from home environment, those who thrive in a busy office environment may feel disconnected from their team members and struggle with feelings of isolation and loneliness.

You may not be able to connect with colleagues in person, but there are ways to improve personal connections and create a supportive work environment within remote teams.

• It’s okay to not be okay – We are all navigating unprecedented levels of stress and anxiety due to a prolonged global pandemic. Work on breaking down any stigmas around discussing mental health issues within your team. Building a supportive and safe environment that encourages trust and openness will help you to better understand and address the challenges your team members are facing.
• Create opportunities for social connections – This could be a dedicated non-work channel where team members can share interests and chat informally. Or perhaps making an effort to celebrate colleagues’ personal milestones and achievements (remember when we used to have cake in the office?).
• Try team building exercises – Yes, team building exercises have a bad reputation for being timewasters, but they can also be a good way to establish rapport between team members and boost morale. Steer clear of mandatory team building or social activities though. Nobody wants to be forced into a Zoom trivia quiz when they have an important deadline looming.

Arm your team with the right tools

If remote work has been the norm within your organization for a while, the expectation may be that everyone is sufficiently set up and au fait with remote technologies by now.

The truth is that everyone has a different learning curve and adjustment periods may vary from person to person.

Check in with your team to make sure they have the all the resources and knowledge they need to perform their tasks smoothly. This can extend beyond your tech stack and may include anything from ensuring everyone has good office chairs to providing training on effective time management.

Shared knowledge

Increase efficiency and reduce confusion by creating and maintaining shared documents where everything is stored in one place.

Ideally, you should set up a shared folder in the cloud for all your collaborators to work from. This way, everyone always has the latest version of the document and there’s no confusion about who has what file. In addition, this approach removes the need to send emails back and forth with attachments and allows for real-time editing.