5 tips to effectively manage a remote team

On the other hand, with the competition for finding the right workforce at an all-time high, more and more companies are now looking at building remote teams in different countries. Without the restrictions of hiring only from the local talent pool, companies can leverage foreign talent, and significantly reduce operational costs at the same time. However, there are still companies in the West who are skeptical about working with remote offshore teams or even remote teams in general for one primary reason. They just don’t know how to make it work.

Will it hamper productivity? What if the project fails? Is it efficient to build a remote team? These are some of the many questions that are contemplated over. This blog post is the answer to all those questions. In this post, we highlight five tips, which, when implemented, will ensure maximum collaboration and productivity with your remote team.

1. Be intentional

What does it mean to be intentional?

When an employee, remote or otherwise, feels appreciated or recognized, their productivity automatically increases. Simple things like responding to them as quickly as possible, creating virtual spaces for socializing, or always remembering and celebrating birthdays and work anniversaries may seem insignificant, but can be extremely gratifying. Make each team meeting as an intentional opportunity to engage with your remote team, and find new ways to contribute towards a healthy collaboration.

2. Create a communication strategy

Studies have suggested that between 60-90% of all communication can be nonverbal – basically, it’s easier to get on the wrong page when working with remote teams who aren’t physically present to understand the tone of your voice. This makes it all the more important to build a robust communication strategy. Here are some strategies that you can implement:

If remote employees cannot find an important document, struggle to download files because there’s no system in place, or forget when an important task is due, you’ve failed to address the basics – implementing task-tracking and project management tools. Some famous project management systems include Wrike, Trello, Basecamp, Zoho Projects, and Clarizen.
Since you can’t physically see what your remote team is working on, a cloud-based project management system is an absolute necessity. By using a cloud project management system, you can plan, collaborate, and monitor the different stages of a particular project using a network of tools. Task management Kanban boards, a customizable dashboard, fully-integrated file storage, and a variety of task-tracking tools are some of the features of a traditional cloud project-management system.

When working with remote employees, it’s easy to keep them away from the big picture. Sitting in a different country, they may not always know what’s happening at the local office and vice versa. However, employees often look to their managers and leaders as an example of how to behave in a work setting. If you are open and honest, there is no reason why they aren’t going to do the same.

For example, if you have news to share, make sure you let every team member know at the same time – not just the members of your local team. This way, your remote team won’t feel like they’re the last to hear about what’s happening in the office, or that you’re intentionally withholding information from them.

You can’t expect your remote teams to feel connected to your company if you can’t make that happen through action.

At The Scalers, we help innovative global businesses build highly talented software development teams in Bangalore — the second largest tech ecosystem in the world.