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How to Manage Your Remote Working Team Effectively?
The recent pandemic has led to a shift from conventional to hybrid workspaces. A lot of companies have started promoting remote working as it is seen to improve productivity and help achieve work-life balance. But a major challenge is in managing the workforce in remote working conditions.
Major Challenges Associated with Remote Working Teams
Based on feedback and observations, the following major challenges have been identified. Team management strategies and tools must aim at overcoming these challenges effectively.
Communication − One of the major challenges with remote working teams is ensuring proper communication across the various levels of the organizational structure. It is important for organizations to adopt software and tools that enable smooth communication processes in a remote or hybrid working environment.
Attitude of the employees towards work − As work goes remote, it becomes difficult for employees to differentiate between work and life. As a result, the morale and performance of the employees might take a hit if not for effective measures to evaluate and incentivize.
Adoption of technologies − Most of the organizations have people from the previous generation in a significant proportion. They might not be able to cope with the technological savviness expected in a remote working environment. As a result, they might feel inefficient and stressed.
Burnout − This is again a pressing issue with remote working. In a typical office scenario, people have clear boundaries between personal life and work. However, in a remote working environment, the boundary sort of diminishes leading to seepage of work into personal space. Working overtime leads to reduced productivity.
11 Tips to Manage a Remote Team Effectively
Here are 10 tips that organizations could adopt in order to manage their remote teams effectively. Unlike traditional work management, remote project management is bound to be flexible.
Understanding the remote structure − The foundation of a successful remote project management technique is to understand the type of remote structure that the organization is going to adopt. These include completely remote, hybrid, and flexible. In a hybrid team, few members can work from the office while others work remotely. In a flexible working environment, the team members can work from home, office, or in a co-located space.
Hiring the right candidates − The major challenges associated with remote working teams are collaboration and communication. Hence hiring candidates with the right set of skills is highly necessary.
Set clear guidelines and realistic goals − Clarity is crucial in a remote working environment. There must be clear protocols and procedures for addressing issues. Also, check-in times, work hours, authority etc. must be clearly established.
Keep the team engaged − It is highly important to stay connected with the teams at regular intervals depending on the project or task. Virtual meetings or occasional face-to-face meetings must be planned and executed depending on the remote structure.
Set a standard and reliable communication channel − Chats, feedback, calls, and announcements must be integrated into a single and reliable communication channel to ensure that employees do not miss out on any critical information.
Choosing the right collaboration tools − There are a lot of tools out there. But it is important to analyse and choose the right collaboration tool to help the teams work together no matter where every person is.
Engage with a time tracking system − Tracking time in a remote working environment is a hard thing. However, spending on a time-tracking system is going to help big time.
Make use of the RACI Matrix − A Responsibility Assignment Matrix is a map of the deliverables with the persons responsible, accountable, consulted, and informed. This helps establish clarity in terms of the roles and responsibilities of the team members in a remote working environment.
Start with a quick meeting and keep the line of communication open − It is effective to start the day with a brief to all the members of a remote working team. This helps bring clarity to the deliverables of the day, priorities, and goals. Also, to-do lists can be created collaboratively to keep track of the deliverables.
Provide emotional support and keep in touch − What employees lack in a remote working space is the feeling of being together with their team members. In order to boost morale and increase productivity, team-building activities and weekly one-on-one meetings could be organized.
Choose a relevant hybrid work management tool − This is highly recommended to keep everything organized and under control in a remote working environment. Organizations can choose from a large number of cloud-based management tools to manage and support their employees remotely.
Selecting A Relevant Remote Project Management Tool for Your Organisation
All the tips and techniques mentioned earlier might be inadequate if a relevant remote project management tool is not used. Owing to the importance of such tools, let us look at some features that organizations should consider before selecting a remote project management tool.
Planning and scheduling of projects − The tool must enable the creation of project deliverables and deadlines that are visible in a shared calendar. Task distribution charts and interactive dashboards might enhance the whole experience.
Collaboration and communication − File sharing, communication systems, audio, and video call options, team meetings, etc. should be considered before selecting the right tool.
Tracking of time − In certain instances, it is necessary to keep track of time. So, companies that pay hourly rates need to look out for a solid time-tracking feature.
Analytics and reports − The remote project management tool must be able to generate reports and produce analytics that might be useful for successful human resource practices and training. Also, such features give an overview of crucial information that might translate to key resources for the organization.
There are quite a lot of options in the market for remote project management. A few of the best tools based on feedback and reviews are as follows −
Trello
Slack
Google Workplace
Microsoft Projects
Wrike
Basecamp
Jira
Monday.com
Asana
Project Manager
Conclusion
Remote and hybrid workplaces are going to be the future. And it has been pretty evident from the recent pandemic. Hence it is better for organizations to start leveraging best practices and tools to adapt to the new normal.
Managing remote working teams is not a hard task with the right set of tools and collaborative people on board.
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