Nowadays, we are often part of teams that are based all over the U.S., Europe and beyond. Just because you all work for the same company does not always mean that you end up working within the same office. As a result, it is important that those in charge are able to effectively manage those teams as if they were all located in the same building. Here are some of the best ways to do so.
Establish Standards
One of the first steps you can take is to establish uniform standards across the entire team. This will help everyone, no matter where they are, to understand what is expected from them in their job. It could be something like a set amount of time on a task, or a certain way of phrasing a report.
You might not be working together physically, but establishing and reviewing standards is a great way to ensure that everyone is working together in the same way. When there might be thousands of miles separating two or more people working on the same project, this is key for ensuring uniformity.
Offer Rewards
Working well together needs to be rewarded, whether you are all working together in the same space or in different ones. By making use of a flexible employee benefits platform, you should have all the incentives you need to create the right set of rewards.
As your team all work in different areas, it might seem difficult to come up with something that can appeal to all of them. Nevertheless, there should be something that they should all be able to make use of. Make the system as easy to use and as flexible as possible for maximum benefit, and review it with them where you can to ensure that it is still offering the coverage they need.
Open Communication
When working at a distance, it is incredibly important that you have open channels of communication. So much can go wrong if people are unable to talk to each other, and resentment can quickly build. If you have multiple people all working on the same project, you need to all be able to communicate. Sometimes, email isn’t robust enough of a system.
Luckily, there are several ways around this. Firstly, you might want to think about introducing some form of live chat. This allows for constant updates between the team, and can make things a lot more open and easy to communicate. Adding in daily meetings with a video conferencing software also helps to keep everyone on the same page, no matter what they might be working on.
Delegation
When you have people all over the world working on the same project, it is incredibly important that they know which parts they can work on, and what needs to be left alone. If too many people go blundering in trying to help, it could result in two people working on the same area of the project. This means that someone could be just repeating work that has already been done when their attentions could be best used elsewhere.
The right task management software can solve this dilemma. This will help people to know precisely where they need to direct their attentions. If they finish their assigned work for the day, more can always be added to the list.
These are just some of the tools that you can use when attempting to effectively manage a remote team. Thanks to the power of the internet, it is now perfectly possible for people scattered across the globe to all come together to work in the same teams.
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