How To Manage A Remote Team

Working remotely can become overwhelming, especially if you’re a manager. You might feel compelled to micromanage your home-based teammates but that could end up causing more harm in the long run as most people prefer to have some freedom when working. You can manage your remote team like a pro with these tips from Appoynt's Head of Virtual Assistants, Perez.

Encourage Constant Communication

Although you may not be in the same space as your teammates, communication should continue to flow between you and them. In fact, that may be the only way to ensure that work is being done in a remote team. Using apps like Slack and Microsoft Teams encourages continuous and quick conversations between team members.

Prioritise and categorise tasks

Daily tasks will vary in terms of importance and urgency. Some may need to be done as soon as they are raised and some can be shelved until you have enough time to tackle them. Prioritise each task depending on importance and urgency and communicate this to your team. Certain tasks don’t have to be performed every day. So, you can categorise tasks into daily, weekly or monthly. Customise them according to your company's routine and you’re good to go.

Delegate effectively

Delegating simpler tasks is a good way to reduce some of the stress that may come with managing a remote team. After you have prioritised your tasks, you can see which tasks can be deleted. Allow your teammates to handle them so that you can focus on more important matters. 

Schedule regular check-ins

One of the ways to encourage communication is to schedule regular check-ins. Team meetings and one-to-one meetings are important when managing a remote team. The majority of teammates would not socialise with others outside of team meetings, especially if their jobs are not directly related. So, team meetings are a great way to get your team to interact with one another and bond. Create that setting with one-to-one sessions where they get to talk about their challenges and what they need help with.

Recognise the different personality types in your company

This is not only important for managing your remote team, it’s essential when managing any team. Management relies heavily on interactions with people so make a conscious effort to understand the different personality types in your team. That way you’ll be able to manage them more effectively. It’s especially useful when scheduling your one-to-one meetings.

Track your goals

This might sound obvious, but tracking your goals is a brilliant way to help manage your remote team. This is similar to prioritising and categorising tasks but this goes beyond setting routine tasks. It’s about looking at the bigger picture for you and your team. Start by writing them down, including details about each goal, the timelines and which member of the team should achieve each goal. Again, you can make use of project management tools like Asana or Trello to track your milestones.

Encourage ideas from your teammates

As a manager, you’ll most likely have a lot of great ideas for how to move the team and the business forward. However, you don’t have to put so much pressure on yourself to have all the best ideas. Sometimes, your teammates will have great ideas that you would never have thought of, simply because of the position you are in. Your teammates may come up with easier, faster and more efficient ways of getting things done. So encourage your team to come out with ideas they might have that will help improve the business and the team while you work remotely. You don’t have to do all the heavy lifting alone.

Schedule in-person workdays

Working remotely may help to boost the team’s productivity as they’ll have more flexibility with where and how they work, but even the most introverted people crave human contact from time to time. Have the best of both worlds by scheduling some days where your team gets to work together in person. You can also schedule physical team bonding activities after work on those days so the team can have fun together occasionally. 

In a nutshell, mastering remote team management boils down to constant communication, savvy task prioritization, effective delegation, regular check-ins, and recognizing diverse personalities. Whether it's tracking goals or encouraging team ideas, striking the right balance is key. And don't forget those in-person workdays for a touch of camaraderie. With these tips, you're not just managing a team – you're fostering a dynamic, connected crew.

At Appoynt, we can help you run your business more efficiently. Get in touch, we’re here to help!