There are numerous benefits to working remotely. From a nonexistent commute to flexible working schedules, employees today rave about working from home. There is, of course, a flipside to this, and it tends to fall on team managers and company leaders. WFH arrangements can lead to several issues from an organizational perspective. Poorly coordinated schedules, collaboration difficulties, and lack of communication are all pitfalls remote team managers may encounter.
Not only can these challenges be frustrating, but they can also lead to poor business outcomes. With no in-person interactions, employees may feel isolated and less motivated to complete their work. They can also become annoyed with their co-workers, particularly if they feel others aren’t pulling the same weight. Eventually, these feelings may lead to individuals quitting and looking for work elsewhere.
Before any of your team members decides to jump ship, there are proactive steps you can take as a leader to optimize remote work. Just because you aren’t physically together doesn’t mean you can’t run a well-oiled machine of a team! Here are four ways to improve your remote team’s organization.
1. Leverage Product Management and Collaboration Software
In order to keep everyone on your team organized, it’s best practice to lean into product management software. With the right product manager tool, you and your team can keep tabs on multiple deadlines via task boards. You can also monitor weekly sprints, track quarterly goals, and create charts to see where you are on certain projects.
In addition, these tools are often able to utilize APIs to sync with other software platforms such as GitHub or Slack. This increases team members’ productivity, as they don’t need to switch between tools to get their work done.
Of course, it’s important to remember that such tools won’t do the work for your team. They still need to put in the time and effort to complete tasks. These tools will simply help streamline the overall workflow. Make sure everyone on the team knows how to indicate task completion and hand off deliverables to the next teammate in line. To ensure team members understand how to use the tool, provide thorough training, particularly for new hires so they can jump on board quickly.
2. Schedule Regular Check-Ins
Whether you’re managing a team or two or a team of 20, check-ins are essential for facilitating remote work. These check-ins can happen weekly, biweekly, or maybe monthly. The cadence is up to you and your team, so have them weigh in on how often they’d like to meet.
Come prepared to each meeting, ensuring you have enough to talk about so the employee doesn’t feel like it’s a waste of time. Also, leave enough time for them to bring up any concerns they’d like to discuss with you. These regular check-ins can make all the difference in how the team is organized. You may discover, for instance, that there’s a hiccup in one stage of the workflow process, causing frustration among your employees. With this information, you can begin to identify ways to remove the obstacle.
These meetings also provide an opportunity to get to know your employees from a personal point of view. While not everyone will be openly discussing the details of their lives, talking about their weekend or an upcoming vacation offers a non-intrusive way to bond. Developing personal relationships with your team members can help motivate them to do their very best work for the good of the team.
3. Establish Work-Life Boundaries and Schedules
When the pandemic first began, many individuals had a hard time separating their work life from their home life. This made sense, as dining tables became impromptu office desks and bedrooms became sites for Zoom meetings. While many WFH wrinkles have since been ironed out, remote work can still lead to blurred work-life boundaries.
Encourage your team members to set clear boundaries regarding when they are working and when they’re logged off. Just because someone is working around the clock doesn’t necessarily mean they are more productive. A Stanford University study found that productivity declines significantly after individual logs more than 50 hours per week. So while remote work does enable flexible schedules, it shouldn’t allow work to seep into every moment of your team members’ lives.
From an organizational lens, make sure you’re respecting the boundaries various team members have set. This means taking different time zones and personal obligations into account. Don’t call a team meeting when one team member is doing a school dropoff and another is about to log off for the day. Maintain an open dialogue about boundaries to ensure the team is getting what it needs and individuals are getting what they need, too.
4. Set Communication Channels
Lastly, remote teams need to develop clear communication channels. Your company is doubtless already set up for email, and you probably have other channels such as Slack or videoconferencing. Now you need to establish which channel is used for which types of communications.
If employees are getting the same message via multiple channels, they may easily get annoyed. On the other hand, if a message isn’t distributed via the appropriate means, some may be left outside the loop. Create channel-related guidelines so every team member learns what they need to know, when, and how they need to know it.
The ways a team communicates may be up to the team leader, but it’s important to get employees’ feedback as well. Creating department-specific Slack channels may seem like a great idea, but if no one uses them, they serve no purpose. Some managers may be open to receiving text messages, especially after hours, but others may want to keep that channel off-limits. Developing communication protocols in a thoughtful way, and changing them as required, is vital to keeping your team happy and organized.
Takeaways
Remote work is here to stay, so managers need to organize their teams appropriately. Remember that what works well for another remote team may not work well for yours. Discuss any pitfalls you see with your employees, asking them how they think the team can operate better. By incorporating your team members’ input, you’ll gain their buy-in, leading to a more motivated and productive remote team.