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Remote work has rapidly grown in popularity among the modern workforce. However, managing remote teams offers challenges that many leaders find daunting.
Although remote work provides benefits like access to wider talent pools and flexibility, there are some hurdles to clear.
This article reveals the key challenges remote managers encounter, from communication to building team spirit. Read on to learn from real-world case studies and solutions to keep your remote teams productive and happy.
Proper Coordination Among Teams
Managing remote teams can enhance your reach to global talent. This way, you may engage with professionals across the globe.
Managing remote teams in different time zones can be challenging. Conducting training sessions, review meetings, and other activities may pose a challenge to the managers.
The dispersed workforce may experience issues attending meetings in different time zones. A remote team needs to learn to work cohesively when in different locations. Here are some ways to do just that:
Solutions
Creating and updating helpful resources can be beneficial. Investing time in making comprehensive resources where remote teams can easily find solutions to their challenges. Keep these resources updated to ensure a streamlined workflow.
Use collaboration tools to serve distributed teams for various purposes. For project management, one can use Trello, Asana, Jira, or Monday.com. Use Google Drive or Dropbox for file sharing. Slack and Notion can be the perfect solutions for communication and brainstorming.
These tools can perform different functions, from communication channels to task management. Centralized platforms can help by recording work progress, challenges, and instructions on one platform and assisting teams in coordinating and achieving business results.
Clear and Consistent Communication
Communication can make or break any team. For distributed workforces, the manner, frequency, and style of your communication can be significant.
Communication is important for remote workers to keep the task on track. However, the use of virtual tools by remote teams can lead to challenging situations. Emails can be misread or even reach spam folders, and chat messages can reach inboxes at busy moments, leading to miscommunication due to dependence on virtual tools.
Communication on digital platforms can lose context. A written message can create opportunities for misinterpretation of the sender's tone and intentions. Cultural differences and language barriers can also cause miscommunication in remote teams.
You can use robust remote communication practices to ensure much-improved communication with remote teams.
Solutions
Be careful about the tone in messages and emails to avoid digital miscommunication. Use a relatable, friendly, and positive tone. A simple greeting and acknowledgment can make a message more connected. Try to stay courteous while having formal communication with remote workers.
Meet remote talents individually more often. A one-on-one virtual meeting can present ample opportunities for transparent and clear communication and ensure that you are on the same page as your team.
You can use communication channels such as Zoom, Microsoft Teams, and Slack to manage remote communication where general updates and interpersonal communication can happen. Managing a central communication platform can keep everyone updated and accountable. Additionally, remote workers can keep an eye on progress and get up to speed quickly.
In the realm of digital communication across remote teams, ensure that you set clear expectations about communication. The teams should be well-versed in the communication channels or modes of communication including how, when, and whom to update.
Personal distractions
The chances of personal distractions are higher in the case of working from home or any remote location as compared to working from the office. For example, children, pets, or family members may demand the attention of the worker when they’re home.
It is also more likely to get distracted by personal tasks. The distractions may not be for everyone, but most employees find it challenging to manage their work time and personal time effectively, with the mental threat of the thrill of a personal hobby looming over them.
Remote managers need to address these issues to ensure the timely delivery of time-bound projects.
Solution
It is essential to provide the tools to manage distractions to ensure quality deliverables on time. This includes building regular breaks into the day to enable employees to handle personal issues or spend personal time. Companies must create more flexible work schedules to address personal distractions and help employees with family, whether they work remotely or not.
It is important to ensure the freedom of remote employees with flexible work schedules. Managers can address their productivity issues due to distractions by providing more training or guidance (sometimes counseling) to get them back on track.
Isolation and loneliness
Remote workers working from home may develop a sense of social isolation. Offices are more of a social outlet for the employees, where they meet and greet people regularly to avoid the feeling of isolation. According to a study by Harvard Business Review, employees who feel lonely or isolated are more likely to be dissatisfied with their jobs and quit.
Solution
Remote managers can hold regular team-building sessions to overcome the issue of loneliness. Virtual meetings may help employees spend time socializing with their colleagues. Virtual informal meetings or online learning sessions are good for making employees feel included and less isolated.
Managers can conduct group meetings with employees living in the same area. Companies can also encourage workers to find social outlets outside of work.
Trust Deficit
Remote teams also struggle with a trust deficit. According to a report by Microsoft, 85% of managers don’t trust their employees to be productive when they work remotely.
This can lead to miscommunication and micromanagement by managers and, ironically, interrupted work relationships. In such scenarios, the remote workers may be less likely to feel engaged with the work and may even experience burnout.
Solution
Remote workers should find ways to measure their productivity to build trust. By following such practices, managers can be assured that the work is getting done.
This can be achieved by measuring key performance indicators (KPIs) and other crucial metrics. This can help managers understand how, where, and when employees perform well and where they require more help to concentrate and improve.
Company Culture
A good culture can help employees and provide numerous benefits to the company, such as better customer satisfaction, engaged employees, and increased productivity.
It can also reduce turnover and assist workers in maintaining their mental health.
As stated earlier, workplaces can function as social outlets for employees, and a good company culture can help build this.
The organizational culture can also create a sense of purpose and meaning for employees. It can make them more positive about attaining organizational goals by working with zeal and enthusiasm. Remote teams can have issues connecting with the company culture and its core values, posing issues for managers and employees alike.
Solution
Remote managers can build an exciting and meaningful company culture by ensuring a robust vision and mission statement to follow. Company culture incorporates shared ideas and values. It helps connect with the shared ethos.
This way, remote managers can deal with the dispersed workforce to deal with critical challenges and foster a culture that empowers remote workers with shared values, clear communication, and communication.
Work-life balance and mental health
A survey from Buffer reveals that 27% of remote workers said unplugging from work was the most significant challenge when working from home. Usually, remote workers spend more time at work than their in-office counterparts.
They are likely to be unable to unplug due to the lack of physical separation from their work, as they would leaving an office. This may lead to burnout for most of the employees, which remote managers need to pay attention to.
Solution
Create and implement policies on work time and enforce them. It is essential to ensure that the employees have regular breaks. Many remote first workplaces offer family days or community days into their schedules on top of the federal holidays. This can improve the overall mental health of the employees but can also reduce overtime spend.
Maintaining cyber security
Cybersecurity is a persistent threat in today’s digital age. The remote workforce dispersed across the country or the globe can pose real threats. Maintaining the physical security of organizational devices such as laptops and smartphones is one issue; keeping company assets secure through safe Wi-Fi connections and preventing phishing attacks are others.
Some IT companies believe that employees are the biggest security threats, usually due to a lack of training or awareness of practical threats.
Solution
Employees should be trained on the ways to prevent any phishing or any other scam to secure company devices and data. The managers should encourage employees to use a trusted virtual private network (VPN) at the time of handling sensitive and confidential data, especially private company data or customer data.
Implement firewalls and other critical security measures on company devices. Use dual authentication (TFA) and strong password policies. Create, implement, and enforce a cybersecurity policy that employees could understand and adhere to.
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