You’re leading a team of remote workers. How can you ensure they stay productive and engaged?

Clear communication, flexible work arrangements, technology support, regular check-ins, recognition, professional development, and wellness initiatives.

Aside from the obvious check ins and management tools and strategies, fun and opportunities to connect is often ignored and undervalued by many business leaders. Lunch alongside, some fun planned online activities are great on a regular date and time, say after lunch. Drawasaurus is a great free game for teams. Build in fun, connection, collaboration and human interaction. Its not All about AI and Robots!

1. Clear Expectations: Set clear goals and deadlines to guide their work. 2. Communication Tools: Utilize communication platforms for regular check-ins and updates. 3. Support and Resources: Provide necessary tools, resources, and support for their tasks. 4. Flexibility: Offer flexibility in work hours to accommodate different schedules. 5. Recognition: Acknowledge and reward their achievements to boost morale. 6. Team Building: Organize virtual team-building activities to foster camaraderie. 7. Feedback Loop: Encourage open communication and provide regular feedback to address concerns and celebrate successes.

Using the right tools (for the right message) is absolutely crucial for engaging and empowering remote teams. For communication, this may mean that you're posting the same message across multiple channels - for example an intranet and a work-based social media platform. This 'cross-posting' ensures that the message lands with the widest range of people, and no-one is left in the dark because of their communication preferences. If there's something that people absolutely must know, consider whether an all-employee email or briefing would be appropriate.

The strongest leaders of remote or hybrid teams make it easy for regular communication no matter where team members are located and embrace every digital tool for connections. One simple thing you can do is get into the habit of connecting to video calls from your own laptop so remote team members can see you, vs only looking at a conference room table lineup. The days of solving problems face to face are evolving to digital collaboration, and digital collaboration tools make it easy.

Knowledge for the sake of control is outdated - but still common. Teams have generally become smaller and the number of tasks more diverse at the same time. In my experience, transparency is at the top of the to-do list if you want to work successfully with remote teams or hybrid teams. Only if the goals are openly communicated and mapped, and it is clear what role the individual team members have in this, will understanding for each other grow. A weekly jour fix with the whole team, where everyone reports on their experiences in a very focussed way with a time limit, helps with this. Individual aspects can then be explored in greater depth and a solution can be worked on together.

Regelm??iges konstruktives Feedback ist wichtig, um die Leistung der Mitarbeiter:innen anzuerkennen und Verbesserungsm?glichkeiten aufzuzeigen. Dies kann dazu beitragen, Mitarbeiter:innen zu motivieren und das Engagement sowie die Motivation aufrechtzuerhalten.