The popularity of remote work has taken a steep rise with the upshot of the global pandemic and worldwide lockdown. In fact, during the phase of COVID-19, People worldwide also learned that remote work not only offers flexibility in the work environment but also promotes work-life balance. An increasing number of businesses now from startups to high-profile ones, welcome remote work methods to leverage its great advantages.
According to Richard Ghilarducci, however, leading and managing a remote team may appear fairly challenging to those who are not aware of the best practices for managing a teamwork environment. In this article, the distinguished personality focuses on the best practices for effective management of remote teams.
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Set Clear Expectations
Effective communication with team members and clear expectations from them is the first step to leading and managing a remote team. It is vital to set clear targets, deadlines, and outcomes to promote a result-oriented work environment while avoiding possible burnout. According to Richard Ghilarducci, before getting started with a remote team, one needs to decide on work hours, mode and type of communication channel, meetings, and deadlines of the work.
Choosing a platform or mode of the channel with which everyone is comfortable will help in two-way communication as well as organizing meetings for group chats to discuss different issues, briefing about the project work, getting feedback on work status, etc. This will not will enhance the productivity of work but also foster employee satisfaction as well as their performance.
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Set Daily Online Meetings
Setting online meetings daily not only familiarizes the virtual team with a routine but also creates a feeling of being in the office. Apart from boasting the workplace standard, a daily online meeting will ensure the presence of every team member and thereby offers an opportunity to align the team about what they are expected to do on that particular day, sharing client feedback, informing about approaching projects, apprise one or more member for their great jobs and equally listen to their issues. This will help in organizing the entire team and keep clients happy by delivering project work as per their standards and on a timely basis.
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Be Welcoming and Responsive To Feedback
Constructive and fast feedback helps remote teams in avoiding possible mistakes, streamline virtual operations, promote trust in leadership, and build healthy team relationships. Team leads need to provide meaningful and timely online feedback to team members once they make a query while working on any project, conduct one-to-one chats, and be welcoming as well as responsive to two-way communication.
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Provide Employees Necessary Equipment and Tools
A remote work setup is likely to restrain many members do their job remotely especially those who are not equipped with the necessary equipment like a laptop for doing their jobs. According to Richard Ghilarducci, it is the best practice to provide remote employees with a dedicated laptop exclusively for company use.
Moreover, if the management wishes to embrace any workspace application or customized one which has become a trend for effective project management, they need to train the team members about how to work on them and also let them access the facility. Company-provided laptops and access to project management software will be immensely helpful for the team members to work more devotedly. This also brings discipline, transparency, and agility to the work environment.
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Evaluate Work Output
Make sure to monitor and review the work outcome of every team member to ensure they are working according to the guidelines and business norms. While the good performers need to be appreciated and inspired to do better, those who fail to reach the target need to be called on one-on-one discussions to listen to reasons for failing to reach the desired results.
