Before the turn of the decade, home working was mostly seen as a privilege for trusted colleagues who would be allowed to work a day or occasionally two from home. Alternatively, it was a necessity for staff who covered a remote territory that didn’t warrant a dedicated office, or who travelled frequently.
Things have changed dramatically since then, especially in the membership sector. At Membership Bespoke, we have seen more candidates who have an expectation of homeworking. Membership organisations also see remote working as a means of being able to cast a wider net to find appropriately skilled talent, so it works well for organisations and workers.
However, one cohort of workers who are often overlooked in this sequence, is Team Managers. They have the responsibility to deliver on their objectives, which during an economic downturn have often become even more demanding.
Managing staff who work from home can be challenging, but with the right strategies, it can also be highly effective. Here are the top ten tips for managing remote teams:
For new members of staff, it’s important to be clear on your values, members expectations and culture from the outset, in a more conspicuous manner than you might have previously considered. If they’re working from home, they won’t see the organisation’s expected behaviours being exemplified day-in and day-out, so you must be clear so that they know how to react consistently with the organisation’s ethos.
Clearly define roles, responsibilities, and performance expectations. It’s important to avoid misunderstandings in the expectations of what staff need to achieve in their roles. In an office environment you can see what’s happening and make micro-corrections as needed, but in a home working situation, deviation from expectations can rapidly become established norms and lie undiscovered for a long time, only to raise their head when there is a problem. Most likely, these types of problems occur when the ball has been dropped because someone thought someone else had been keeping an eye on it! Does that sound familiar?
Establish regular working hours and deadlines. It shouldn’t be harder to get staff together for regular meetings, but it often is when they work remotely, especially if there’s any ambiguity in working hours. With a team that’s already based out of the office, it can be easy to focus entirely on the output of deliverables and be less concerned about reduced availability, as it may not affect the performance of an individual. However, it can have a significant impact on the performance of the team, which filters through to your members.
Use a variety of communication tools such as video calls, instant messaging, and email. It seems that instant messaging comes into its own when people work from home. For those who used it before COVID, it was not uncommon to see two people sat next to each other messaging, rather than turning around and talking. Often, because they were messaging a wider group, but not always. The immediacy of messaging brings team members closer to each other without the need for proximity. Sometimes though, a video call works better. Just because people are working apart, it doesn’t mean that communication frequency should reduce. In fact, it should be increased, and it not all work related. Fun and chat should definitely be part of the mix, as that creates togetherness.
Schedule regular check-ins to provide support and feedback. From a management perspective, you can easily become left out of informal chat groups, and so managers need to make sure they are regularly contacting their teams in lieu of the visibility they no longer have in the office.
Utilise collaboration tools to facilitate communication and project management. There are so many great collaborative tools out there, from Canva for design, Miro for planning, and Trello, Jira and Monday.com for project management. Google workspace and others for document sharing, and Slack, Teams, Chat and even Discord, which is traditionally a gaming messaging platform, but has recently found traction in the workplace.
Ensure all team members are trained on how to use these tools effectively. You can’t assume that everyone knows how these systems work. While they are increasingly intuitive in their design, they all have their own peculiarities. They are also not necessarily as easy to learn and use for each generation. Managers in membership organisations with a large diversity of employees can find that it can be quite difficult to move some staff away from more traditional communication systems, such as email, and here they need to find a balance between not unnecessarily disrupting a performing member of the team, but also being aware of what that person could be missing out on, if they find it awkward to participate in these new systems.
Measure performance based on output and results rather than hours worked. Working remotely means that the focus moves to the output achieved from each employee. One thing that many managers struggle with, and that’s knowing how much work they can give to a team member. It can be hard to gauge the balance between keeping them busy, but not overwhelm them. Managers need to be aware of signs that all is not well. For example, corners being cut and the pace of delivery dropping-off. Regular updates will help, but everyone wants to show themselves in the best light, and so managers need to become adept at reading between the lines.
Encourage staff to set daily or weekly goals and review their achievements. Moving to a more agile methodology where teams have morning (virtual) stand-ups to review progress and encouraging the team members to know what they are working on every day are good practices. It’s always been a good habit to spend time planning your day, in a remote working environment, it’s essential.
Promote regular breaks and flexible working hours to prevent burnout. It can sometimes be very difficult for people to get away from their desks when working from home, especially they are highly engaged with the work they’re doing. Managers need to be aware of ensuring their team members are looking after themselves and taking time out. These aren’t things a manager would necessarily give a second though to in an office – or more naturally be aware of it, but in a remote work environment, managers should support people taking breaks.
Respect personal time and boundaries to maintain morale and productivity. The travel home from work creates such a distinct boundary between work time and home time in an office-based environment, so that it becomes clear when it’s not appropriate to contact someone. In a remote working situation, Managers must support and adhere to the work time agreed with teams, and not take advantage of the fact team members have the technical facilities at home to respond to your requests at any time.
Organise virtual team-building activities to strengthen relationships. These can sometimes feel unnatural, but they are worth making an effort do. If at all possible though, it pays dividends to arrange regular physical face-to-face team meet-ups. It’s really worth the effort and it’s usually highly appreciated by all, as it is when you organise these events for members.
Ensure employees have the necessary equipment, such as laptops, internet access, and ergonomic furniture. If team members aren’t comfortable or, for example, don’t have enough screens to use, or their computers and internet are slow, then it ultimately becomes a problem for members. Ensuring an employee is adequately kitted-out is a small cost compared to what is already invested in that person.
Offer IT support to resolve technical issues promptly. It’s not as though a team member can easily replace faulty equipment, the way they can in the office, so you have to ensure that the organisation’s IT team is geared-up to provide quick support to avoid down time.
Provide access to online training and development programs. Being proactive in engaging the team with online development and training shows that your membership organisation is focused on their career development. Career development can all too easily be a casualty of working from home, so as a manager, it’s important to think about the future intended direction of each team member and work with them to achieve it. All too often candidates in remote working situations change roles to get promoted. This is not an optimum way for workers or the organisation to manager promotion. Training and coaching sessions can also be a good way for managers to reiterate and consolidate the company values, so it is important that they should be encouraging their organisation executives to provide this to home workers.
Show trust in your team’s ability to work independently. It can feel like a leap into the unknown for managers and team leaders, but it is often inevitable, as the genie is out of the bottle, and there is no going back. The only choice is the make the most of the situation and build on the positives.
Delegate tasks and give employees the autonomy to make decisions within their roles. This is one of the real advantages to management. Sometimes in an office environment, managers can be seen as a support to solve every problem. That’s not possible in a working from home environment and it is a good thing that managers are being forced to delegate and encourage their team members to make their own decisions. Being good at delegation improves management skills and and support them in their career aspirations.
Regularly ask for feedback on remote working arrangements and be open to making improvements. This is always a good process to go through. Managers can’t solve every problem and it’s essential to set expectations about what can and can’t be changed, but receiving feedback from your team, particularly in a one-to-one situation, can be a positive force in bringing the team together.
While it can be difficult to adapt to managing a team who works from home, Managers need to be open to the positives, and adapt their management styles to make the most of them. By implementing these strategies, it can help create a productive and positive remote working environment, leading to satisfied and high-performing employees, and helping you to achieve your team goals.
If you need help and advice about building and managing a team, or you are interested in the factors that contribute to finding team members who thrive in a home working environment, contact us. Discover more about our expertise.