5 Tips to Strengthen Remote Work Management
While the world continues to adjust to hybrid and stay-at-home models of work subjecting employees to become accustomed to new styles of teamwork, it is important that managers know how to make the best use of the new digital tools at their disposal. The disruptive technology of online work has gradually become more and more optimized and even preferred over traditional methods of work and some managers and HR individuals may find it a bit more difficult to wrangle their remote employees in an organized way. Below are a few tips to help those transitioning into solely remote work manage their employees:
1. Communicate Daily
Checking in with your team is not only especially important to keep them on track, but it is also necessary to make sure you are establishing yourself as a qualified manager. Initiating a daily check-in shows that you are ready to hear their tasks, offer them advice, and be willing to help them. Daily check-ins also help with promoting collaboration, where issues can be fixed by discussing possible solutions or working with those with differing strengths for multiple opinions and viewpoints. Communication allows you as a manager to touch base with your team and track their progress, especially for projects with hard deadlines and moving parts. To keep your communication organized and seamless, you may even consider adopting a project management tool that fits your team communication and collaboration style.
2. Encourage Team Building Exercises
Collaboration is the pillar to smooth work experiences. It is important that as a manager, you encourage transparency and understanding among team members and track the overall team’s progression towards the end goal. One of the biggest challenges of remote work is not having physical interaction with the people you are working with so having team-building calls, separate from daily check-ins, is essential. Not only does it build trust between everyone, but it is a way to get away from a monotonous work-life and get acquainted with fellow employees on a more personal level. Sharing values, ideas, and stories are essential to having productive team sessions.
Today, in this digital life era when people can work remotely and arrange their meetings in virtual space, face-to-face communication within employees became essential. This form of communication ensures higher engagement and a smooth exchange of information and experience. If your company has an integrated hybrid working model and there is no need to rent a permanent office space, meeting rooms or co-working spaces for a day can be taken Into consideration. For instance, if you are the U.S, based company, office space for rent in Fort Lauderdale or other cities with fostered business culture might be a great choice.
3. Delegate Tasks
While collaboration is important to the functionality of a job, making sure each individual on your team has certain unique tasks is beneficial to productivity. Not only does it make each employee feel that their work is valued and integral to the overall end goal of a project, but it reinforces your role as a manager and authority figure within the company or team. Delegating is also important to keep up morale, as smaller tasks split between similarly skilled people is less draining than larger ones placed disproportionately on certain employees.
4. Emphasize Accountability
Accountability is the culmination of communication, teamwork, and delegation – the three pillars discussed above. Each of these factors is important to keep your employees on track. Managers benefit from placing special importance on tracking progress because the work that is reported to higher-ups falls on a manager’s lap, and if deadlines are not met, you are also negatively impacted. Structure is lacking in the digital age as homes are transformed into each employee’s workspace, as opposed to cubicles in an office building, and it can feel like productivity is slowing because of the proximity to the comfort found at home. Accountability remedies these issues and is certain to make projects and meetings run smoothly and efficiently.
5. Celebrate Good Results and Jobs Well Done
Lastly, it is necessary to make working from home as enjoyable as possible, and rewarding teams for the completion of their work by engaging in non-work-related gatherings improves employee morale and mental health. Making sure your team members feel that they had a worthwhile hand in the completion of a task makes for a healthy and positive digital work environment.
Conclusion
Strengthening your remote work management is key to boosting employee performance and staying on top of the multitude of duties placed on managers. Following these tips is a great way to get started on organization and fostering greater connections with and between employees.