How to Communicate as a Remote Team
Managing a remote team takes a lot of time and effort. Gathering all of your remote team members for meetings, project planning, and work discussions can become difficult when you have to reach out to a number of people scattered across different regions and time zones.
On top of that, remote teams communicate differently than in-office ones. For example, there are fewer face-to-face interactions and more Slack messages and Zoom calls.
Here's what you need to keep in mind to ensure successful remote communication.
Establish “office hoursâ€
Flexible work hours can help boost your team’s productivity and help team members achieve work-life balance. But offering flexible work hours can make it tricky to organize real-time communication between team members.
Consider establishing a 2-4 hour time window during which team members should be available for communication. Organize meetings and other team gatherings during these hours.
Choose the right tools
Consider how you want your team to communicate. Which types of conversations should happen over email? Are there topics that are better discussed on a video call?
Decide on a medium for each type of conversation, and then choose the right tools to facilitate them. At Hubstaff, we actively try to avoid using email. We use Slack for the majority of our communication.
For weekly meetings, we use Zoom.
When choosing communication software, try to stick to a maximum of two tools. Otherwise, you risk having your team’s communication dispersed across a lot of different places, which can create silos and cause misunderstandings.
Check in with your team
For remote team members, it’s easy to get sucked into one’s work and not communicate what is happening. Organize regular check-ins with your team to understand what is going on and whether someone might be struggling with their workload or certain tasks.
You can do check-ins through email, but a real-time conversation through a tool like Zoom is better.
At Hubstaff, we use bi-weekly check-ins to stay on top of tasks and projects, as well as have a better understanding of everyone’s workload.
Encourage team members to get to know each other
Remote teams get fewer opportunities for social interaction because they don’t spend time with each other daily like they would in an office. That’s why you need to encourage social time between team members.
Organize regular virtual team building activities such as a virtual happy hour, Slack trivia quizzes, and Netflix parties.
Perhaps the most important thing that anyone in charge of a remote team can do is to be friendly and to promote more communication. Reiterate to your team that they’re all working toward a common goal.
Make team members aware that even though they work from a distance, they can still get to know each other better and make friends for life thanks to digital communication.