How to build relationships with team memebers when managing a remote team?

I started managing remote at the beginning of 2016. At first, I was suspicious that it is possible to build trust and an effective working relationship with people you do not meet in person every day in the office. However, over time I learned how to work with people I had never met and hire remotely.

One of the managers I mentor asked me how they can build trust and personal relationships with their team members when it is impossible to meet in person?

Here are some strategies we discussed:

It is crucial to have regular 1x1s as a manager and even more so when managing remote. I remember having engineers that did not like to have meetings that included meeting with me.

They thought meetings were a waste of time. However, I insisted on meeting with them regularly. I was willing to compromise on the frequency because I needed to be on track with their motivation and challenges.

When you meet for a 1x1, it is always advisable to start with a small talk about how things are going with the employee.

Always be curious about their life as much as they are willing to share, do not interrogate or get into too personal details.

But asking about how they feel, what's on their mind is a good starter for a conversation.

You can also ask what went well and what did not go well for them during the past week.

Other than your immediate direct reports, it is advisable to do skip-level meetings if you manage managers. For example, I used to meet with engineers that did not report directly to me once in a few months to hear them out and hear how they were doing.

How do you build relationships with your teams if everyone is remote?

Virtual Happy Hour - It may sound artificial, but it is a good practice to offer an hour per week, month,?or whatever cadence that works for you for just hanging out.

And let people talk about whatever is on their minds.

It cannot be mandatory. Otherwise, it will feel like a punishment. So it has to be voluntary, and it is best if some people attend that are natural at starting conversations.

Take into account that just a subset of people will join it, and most probably, there will be the same people that join, and some may never join as they feel it is a waste of their time.

Virtual Ice Breaker - at PowerToFly, I got a chance to use a tool called https://gatheround.com/

It is a great tool. You pick conversation topics and conversation starter questions, and the software matches people in pairs (or three people). They talk about a topic for a set amount of time ( typically 5-7 minutes). Then you switch a topic, and new matches are being made.

It is a great way to have people who do not usually work to gather meet each other.

We use it about once per month in PowerToFly.

Geeky stuff - engineers like to code, and what is a better way to let people meet than coding?

You can arrange things like Hackathons or POCs to let people (ideally who do not usually work together on day-to-day) work together on a fun project.

We used to do company-wide hackathons at DigitalOcean, and it was a celebration with SWAG, a competition for winning projects, and it was a great way to let people know each other.

Another strategy can be lunch and learns - let engineers share something they learned with the team.

It is an excellent way for people to get exposure, develop themselves professionally, gain experience speaking in front of other people and share this knowledge. And it allows other people to get to know them.

A cool virtual fun way to spend together that was raised by my mentee was doing a virtual escape room.

I have never tried that but loved the idea!

It is a great way to let people play together and get to know each other.

I love working remotely, and I have been doing it since 2016. However, I still feel like the best way to connect with people is to meet them in person, and we used to do many offsites when I worked at Digital Ocean and spent a great time tougher both on work-related discussions and fun activities. But if it is not possible, I hope the options I gave will be a good substitute.

Share with me what are you doing to keep your team engaged and motivated?

Happy Thanksgiving,

Limor.