Your Team is Remote, Now What?

One impact of Covid-19 has been that many organizations that didn’t typically support working from home have suddenly asked their employees to work remotely. This puts many employees and managers in a situation where they’re outside the office and physically separated from their teams for the first time. It’s going to be tough for many teams without clear remote policies to maintain engagement and productivity.

As someone who has been working remote and managing remote teams for years (and currently I run a virtual company), I’d like to give some pointers that will help mitigate some of the pain of the transition. Keep in mind that remote work, when done properly, is just as productive as being physically present.

The good news is that most of the pain in this sudden transition can be mitigated with making communication rich and easy (which is why you see companies like Zoom seeing explosive growth in subscribers). So, here are some things both employees and managers can do to mitigate these challenges.

Create a Work Area

It’s vital for people like myself, who have school kids at home that are off as well, to have a space that is designated as the work area and as much as possible communicate to the other family members that when you are in this space that work is being done and distractions should be kept to a minimum. This is especially true during any video interactions when your distractions not only show people you aren’t paying attention, but they can become distractions to the rest of the group on the meeting.

One thing I do in my own work area is use the door to the home office. I leave the door open if I’m not in a meeting, and I’ve explained to my children that during my work hours if the door is open then can get me if they absolutely need something real world, but my kids are able to text and instant message, so I ask them to communicate with me during work hours just like my peers do (we use discord within my family unit). If the door is closed, that means I’m in a call or meeting, and something should be on fire if they knock or come in!

For younger children who don’t have that nuance, it’s best to take turns with your spouse if possible and try to set up your meetings such that one partner can handle the young ones and leave the other free from distractions.

If you have young children, no daycare, and no partner to help out, I’d advise to keep the kids where you can see them, but try to keep them out of the video shot, and get fast with the mute button. (and my sympathies for that situation!)

Establish Regular Check-Ins

The format and frequency depend on the level of self-directedness of your team and how much collaboration there is between its members. As a manager, this is where you need to understand your team, because there are a lot of options here:

• A team call, if the work is collaborative.
• A series of one-on-one calls, if the work is independent.
• A series of calls by work group, if your team is larger and has many different projects going on.

Some teams may only need a daily check-in in the morning, others that are more collaborative may need a lunchtime and afternoon check-in as well. The important thing is that you have a format for the meeting that is strictly followed, the meetings are regular and predictable, and everyone feels comfortable raising any questions and concerns about current tasks in the meeting.

Communication Tools are an “And” situation

It is insufficient with effective remote work to rely on one communication platform (unfortunately), and if your newly remote team is trying to run on email alone you are going to be in a world of productivity and morale hurt. You are going to need to support 3 modes of interaction:

• Formal, non-personal, not time sensitive - Email is fine for this.
• Instant, informal, simple, personal, moderately time sensitive - Messaging and quick collaboration tools (Slack, Microsoft Teams, Discord, etc.)
• Complex, personal, time-sensitive - Video conferencing (Zoom, Hangouts, WebEx, etc.)

A good step once you have your tools in place is to establish semi-formal guidelines on when you are going to use each tool with example.

Socializing your remote workers

Keep in mind that in remote work that loneliness is one of the top complaints by remote workers. Some of us need regular social interactions to stay productive and maintain a sense of belonging to the organization. So, try to create opportunities for social interaction. This means creating channels in your messaging and quick collaboration tools for nonsense conversations about hobbies and casual things. Food delivery is still a thing and people are stuck at home so try having a virtual pizza party by timing deliveries and having a video lunch.

Emotionally supporting your remote workers

As a manager, you set the tone for the attitude and emotional well-being (work-related) for the team. This sudden shift to work from home can and will be jarring. Be sure to acknowledge this openly both on team calls and individual meetings. Ask people how the remote work is going for them, listen to their feedback, repeat it back in their own words. In other words, listen to them.

Also be sure to reaffirm your faith in your team members. You’re a team for a reason and both sides chose to work together. Sure, the location changed, but the skills and personalities haven’t changed. Telling your team that you understand things are tough but expressing your confidence that together, you can minimize the bumps and continue pushing forward can help create a sense of challenge and purpose within the team and increase collaboration versus just pretending it’s business as usual, when clearly it is not.

Finally, in this situation give your employees the freedom to flex their availability for meetings and interactions. If a team member has family obligations around mealtimes, then let them establish that between 11am - 12pm if you really need them, you should text them. Balancing these flex times is part of being a good manager, and if you make it a collaborative and empathy driven process, your team will respond positively.

Any other tips?

With almost a quarter of the US workforce already working from home, there’s a lot of tribal knowledge out there. Feel free to leave comments about any procedures that help you and your teams.