Whether it’s managing productivity in a home office environment or promoting synergy in an entirely remote team, you face new challenges as a manager. This may be unnavigated territory, but you can identify mistakes — and correct them. From effective communication strategies to powerful tools like a Zoom Virtual Office background, here are some useful tips to help your team make the most of remote work.
Failure To Maintain Trust
Whether remote or not, any work team needs a sense of trust to maintain cohesion. As a manager, it’s your responsibility to encourage that trust. This means you must help foster it in the first place, but you should also avoid these seven common mistakes that undermine it.
Lack of Flexibility in Work Arrangements
Working from home allows employees to better achieve work-life balance. Some of your team members may be caring for children at home or dealing with other responsibilities. Flex-scheduling permits them to work when it best fits into their day and maximize productivity when they’re at their best.
Communication Breakdowns
Communication can be more challenging in remote teams. Maintaining it requires a little more effort, but tools such as Zoom, Slack or Google Meet make this easier. Schedule regular check-ins both individually and as a team. You can keep the virtual environment professional and friendly with virtual backgrounds for Google Meet.
Social Isolation
Social disconnect is a major challenge for remote workers. One way to combat this is encouraging socialization, including non-work-related kinds. You can set up a non-work chat channel and schedule fun off-hours events like virtual gaming or movie nights.
No Feedback or Learning Opportunities
Performance feedback and growth are often overlooked in remote work environments. Offer both praise and constructive criticism as frequently as you would in person, if not more so. Remember to highlight additional training and learning opportunities now, especially those accessible online.
No Respect for People’s Time
Although people are working remotely, it’s still important to respect boundaries between work and off-hours times. You should also remember time zone differences when planning meetings and other appointments. Calendar sharing and online tools can help you coordinate times that best suit everyone’s schedules.
Ignoring Team Members’ Challenges
Two top issues for remote workers are distractions and mental health. As a manager, you can do a few things to minimize these challenges for your remote teams. You can also provide tools and tips for cutting down on distractions and attending to their mental health: suggesting a dedicated home office space, providing access to therapy and so forth.
Lack of Proper Tools
Communication, project management and file-sharing tools are all keys to your team’s success. They may also need specialized tools to be productive and accomplish objectives. Until an employee gets up-to-date equipment, for instance, you can help this person with a useful virtual background hack if computer specs don’t meet Zoom backgrounds requirements.
Remain Flexible in a Changing Work-A-Day World
New ways of working call for greater flexibility. Offering powerful tools, a supportive environment and resources for achieving work-life balance can benefit you and the rest of your remote office team.