As we practice #socialdistancing one of the most important components of how any team operates is how you communicate. This is even more important for remote teams who don’t share a physical office.
From my 9 year experience working remotely can lead to obstacles in communication that have the potential to disrupt teams if they don’t manage those challenges effectively.
That means the objective for remote team leaders is to establish communication patterns that do more than just share information. They should also lead to greater engagement with the team. While some can see this aspect of leading remote teams as a challenge, it also presents a great opportunity to use creative engagement methods while streamlining communication practices. As remote work becomes more common (4.7 million Americans work remotely at least part-time) figuring out how to engage your remote team will only become more important.
Engagement for a remote team looks like:
- You having one place to go to see all the active tasks your team is working on this week.
- Your virtual assistant sending you a recap report from your project management system of items completed for the week.
- Your team is actively listening to what you have to say.
- Everyone is using the content you provide in actionable ways.
- The team is providing feedback for growth.
Engagement is a two-way street.
Let’s take a look at five ways to encourage remote engagement on your team.
Have a regularly scheduled check-in call with your entire team.
When you lead a remote team, it’s important to strike a balance between micromanaging and not taking enough of a hands-on approach. You have to ensure progress is being made without being overbearing. It’s important to trust your team members, but also giving them an opportunity to give you status updates while also giving them a chance to feel seen and heard.
That’s why you’ll want to schedule at least one regular, weekly check-in for your remote team. It doesn’t have to be long – in fact, the shorter the better. Ask your team to prepare their updates prior to the call. Also, prepare your own high-level for them and leave plenty of time for a Q&A and discussion.
Make the focus of the call less about everyone giving a “book report” about what they’re doing and more about having a conversation. Encourage everyone to talk about the individual challenges they’re facing (personally and professionally where appropriate). Prompt them for suggestions on how to solve all the team’s problems – make it a true team effort!
Have focused, one-on-one discussions with your remote team.
Some conversations are better suited behind closed doors and out of the entire team’s earshot. One of your team members may encounter an issue that’s unique to them. For whatever reason, it may not be appropriate for the entire group to hear the discussion, or perhaps they feel more comfortable in a more intimate setting.
To address this, reach out to your remote team to schedule brief, one-on-one discussions so they can come to you with any potentially sensitive issues. Make it clear what this is and what it isn’t. This will surely help build engagement. It’s NOT another chance for you to check in on them to make sure they’re making progress. It IS an opportunity for them to have an open forum with you to take a deeper dive on any issues they’re facing that the whole group doesn’t need to hear about. Make this optional for anyone who needs it.
Hold “office hours”
Of course, sometimes scheduling individual calls might prove difficult in the face of everyone’s loaded calendars. But there’s a work-around for this as well.
Remember in high school or college when a professor would make themselves available to students? They’d come to their office, open the door, and talk to anyone who came in needing help or advice. You can mimic this with your remote team but tweak it slightly to fit your format.
Schedule a 2-3 hour window of time one day per week to have your own virtual office hours. Tell your remote team if they need to speak with you, they can shoot you an email, IM, or even call you on Skype or Zoom to talk unannounced. You can then talk to them for as long or as little as they need – until they have resolved their issue or feel better about whatever obstacles they’re encountering.
Open up a hangout channel
Adding fun into your work environment is one of the best ways to encourage engagement. Whether this is through Slack channel, or private FaceBook Group, it may help to have one channel designated as your “hangout channel.” Whatever you call it is up to you, but this functions as a place for informal conversation between colleagues along with work-appropriate jokes, memes, or GIFs.
Your team works hard, and while you’re all no doubt doing serious work, it’s natural to want to inject a little levity into everyone’s day. You’re essentially creating a virtual water cooler where everyone can sound off on TV shows they’re binging, books they’re reading, or anything else going on in their lives (within reason, of course – work-appropriate is the key term here!).
Your hangout channel can do more than give everyone a couple laughs during the day. It can help your team bond and build camaraderie even if you are in disparate physical locations.
Promote a culture of extreme flexibility and open communication
One common trait for every team in a traditional office setting is to have a set of core operating hours. It’s important to remember everyone on your team is a human being with unique thoughts, emotions, worries, and concerns. As important as it is to treat remote work the same as working in a traditional office setting, it’s also okay to acknowledge that there are differences. It’s also critical to remember that life can get in the way sometimes and be understanding of this.
If your team members are sick or need to use unexpected PTO to address an issue that came up at home, have a communication process for this in place. It can be email, Slack message, or whatever’s most convenient for everyone, but the crucial part is to ask them to use it. Also, make sure to emphasize that as long as work is getting done and the clients’ needs are being met, their schedules can be flexible. When you promote a culture of extreme flexibility, you empower your team with trust and the confidence that they’re adults who can get their job done.
The bottom line is that by implementing the best practices outlined above, you can give your remote team more of an opportunity to communicate while also allowing them to work more effectively. It builds engagement and productivity. And it’s the best of both worlds.