How can you ensure your remote team is productive over the long term?

* Treat them well. Respect staff rights. Create and maintain trust. * Respect, as far as possible, usual supervisory and accountability mechanisms. Don't just start micromanaging or asking for daily workplans because staff are teleworking. * Engage frequently and also, when possible, informally. * Be particularly attentive to quality communications - find ways to compensate for the lack of face-to-face communication (extra attention to body language, adding an extra dollop of kindness).

People perform based on how they feel they are treated. So, your job as their leader is to provide them with what they need (information, schedule, resources, etc.) and then give them the leeway to perform. Stay in touch but don't overshadow. Guide them but don't micromanage (if you need to, you have the wrong employee). Set clear expectations but give them some freedom to be creative. Leadership (which is what you are doing) is an art - not a structured system. Leaders adjust to the needs of each team member to make both of you successful. So, stay in touch and provide them with what your team needs. Enable them to shine even if they don't give you the credit (although your boss will). Management is metrics, leadership is skill.

Ensuring long-term productivity in a remote team requires a combination of effective communication, collaboration, and support. Establish clear expectations for remote work, including work hours, communication channels, and project deadlines. Clearly define roles and responsibilities to avoid confusion. Set clear and measurable goals for individuals and the team as a whole. Regularly revisit and reassess goals to ensure alignment with overall objectives.

This starts at the top. Make sure your company's purpose is clear and well communicated. Unlike in-office teams, who may see the mission statement on the walls or may be able to rely on social groups to remain connected to the business, a remote company's purpose needs to be communicated more intentionally. Involve your team in yearly planning by running a retrospective with all teams to collect their feedback, frustrations, and ideas. Consider their voice in your strategic planning process and personalize your communications around the resulting plan. You will get more out of this than any initiative you do this year.

Being approachable is key to managing remote team members located across various locations. Team members can get a sense of detachment if the leader is not easily approachable and leaves it to the team to put a placeholder in the calendar. You need to leverage modern day communication tools, interact more and most importantly be empathetic towards one another while working with remote members. Leaders need to pro-actively interact more with team members to address any sense of detachment that may arise from working remotely.

People need a sense of relatedness to the work they're doing. Leaders need to connect every task and project to the organization's overall purpose and priorities. Take a moment to write down your communication plan. Outline how communication flows up, down, and laterally within your business. How does the CEO hear from a frontline employee and vice versa?

When working remotely, it may be that meeting in person is not possible for geographical reasons. However you can still make sure there are online social events for team building and to ensure a sense of community. If there is an office that some/most staff can commute to, encourage events to get people together in person and have a social relationship as well as the professional side. When everyone gets along well it'll make the work easier to deal with!

Autonomy, along with competency and relatedness, are the keys to motivation - and the one-on-one is where all three combine to make or break an employee's relationship with their work. Managers must consider what the employee knows about the work, how much control they have over their work, and if they have the skills for it.

For me, this is by far the most important factor when working remotely. There must be trust that your team members will get their job done to the high standard you employed them for. Yes, they will still need support and communication, but trust is the most important thing. Flexibility combined with trust is a wonderful way to ensure you attract top talent... By allowing flexibility your team members will deliver top results and also be able to juggle their personal life how they see fit.