The prevalence of remote work is booming. It offers both individuals and corporations a great chance to succeed in production and profit. Thanks to the remote work culture, professionals and teams can maximize their productivity and working hours when working from home without being distracted.

According to a study, 16% of businesses only include remote workers in their teams. According to a related study, remote workers are 24% more likely to be content and successful. Yes, it is in style. However, not everyone succeeds at it.

Likewise, several studies show how companies are failing regarding remote work by making ridiculous errors. It involves utilizing erroneous remote work tools and techniques. Any team management has its difficulties.

But these difficulties sometimes seem exacerbated when working in a remote team. We certainly understand that. And hence, to assist you with managing a remote workforce, we have put together a collection of easy tips and hacks!

10 hacks to make remote team management easier:

Here are some simple management tips to help you perform at your peak and maximize your workday, whether you’re managing a remote team or working as a member.

1. Schedule Time to Meet Face-to-Face

It is imperative to schedule regular in-person meetings with remote workers, whether they occur weekly, monthly, or quarterly. Nothing can replace the significance of face time, for real. If you meet in person, you and your employees will understand one another’s personalities, natures, work habits, ideas, and perspectives.

Working efficiently and productively requires getting to know the person behind the screen and getting to know them better. To meet your remote staff, you can plan get-togethers every month or every two to three months, depending on what timetable works best for your business.

Warm gatherings and enjoyable team-building exercises directly impact productivity, team spirit, and overall performance. Irrespective of your team size, it’s crucial to emphasize team-building exercises and foster a feeling of community inside your firm.

This meeting trend can present an opportunity to hold a meaningful conversation with your staff about your company’s culture, goals, and future.

2. Focus on Team-Building

Communication is only one aspect of team interaction. Talking about new ventures and exchanging ideas is engaging; thus, you should have team-building activities with your team. Any activity you think would help your team grow socially, and professionally can be used as a team-building exercise.

Ask them to offer a brief overview of their background, a virtual tour of their workplace, or even just a discussion of their likes and dislikes. The objective here is for your team to engage and get to know one another.

3. Set Boundaries

To keep a healthy balance between their job and personal lives, team members who work remotely or from different locations frequently need to establish some boundaries. Any notifications, chat messages, or emails can disrupt someone’s sleep or family time because the teammates may work from various locations or nations with different time zones.

Discussing phone and text times and work schedules with each team member and agreeing beforehand might show them that you value their time & care about them. As a result, it will be easier to cultivate positive relationships with staff members and ensure that no one is under undue stress.

4. Work on your Team Morale

When there is no communication among the team members, those working remotely or in various cities may feel alienated or unmotivated. Compared to team members who work full-time in the office, dealing with a remote employee with low morale can often be difficult.

Similarly, it might be challenging to boost morale among distant teams. Managers cannot conduct team-building activities and games to promote cooperation and boost motivation when they are physically absent.

Here are some examples of some fun team building activities that could be conducted online, such as The ever-familiar Bingo, Never Have I Ever, Virtual Masterchef, Speed typing test etc.

A different strategy is required to get around this and boost the morale of remote team members. Any employee who lacks motivation should be able to get the support they need from their employers.

If a colleague is running behind schedule and unable to work, offer them the necessary counselling and have a respectful conversation regularly to maintain their morale. Provide sufficient and in-depth training materials if a worker needs help getting up to speed. You can raise your team’s morale by rewarding them for their hard work and expressing gratitude.

5. Provide your Team with the Right Tools

Increasing productivity while working wouldn’t have been conceivable ten years ago. Only a few apps were available to keep you constantly connected to the team so you could complete things while working remotely. But there are many options available to us today.

There are applications like Zoom and Google Meet that guarantee safe and effective video chat with your complete workforce. Slack, Trello, Workzone, Xebrio, Hive, and Basecamp are just a few tools that can simplify task posting and team communication.

It establishes a professional online environment and keeps the team updated on any upcoming deadlines. So, ensure your team has the latest tech to be productive during work hours.

6. Hire the Right Fit

Your employees will determine how difficult or simple your job as a manager will be to hire remote developers. Finding someone suited for remote work will make your job much easier if you recruit remote workers.

Choose candidates who, besides their academic credentials and prior remote work experience, are self-driven, results-oriented, reliable, and responsive. Likewise, strong cooperation and adaptability abilities are also important for all applicants, whether they will be based in an office or working remotely.

7. Respect Cultural Differences

Regardless of the size of the remote team you are leading, managing cultural diversity can occasionally be difficult. Managers and other leaders must deal with difficulties like the various cultures and languages of the team members.

Therefore, it’s crucial to navigate cultural diversity at work properly. It would be highly beneficial if you aided your team members in learning about the customs, languages, and religious holidays of many nations and cultures. It will assist in resolving issues and minimizing cultural misunderstandings.

It is stated that you may connect with individuals more effectively and healthily after you recognize and respect their cultural heritage.

8. Build a Calendar that Suits Everybody

People who work in remote teams work in separate time zones. Sadly, this implies that while some of you are just starting your day, others have already started. Although it frequently happens in remote teams, you can still get around it.

The vital aspect is maintaining track of everyone’s time zone and adjusting the calendar accordingly. Set up meetings when most of your team members are available.

9. Invest in a Project Management Software

You must choose which project management software is best for your team members to be more productive and enhance team productivity.

Making the greatest software choices can increase your productivity. You can escape the micromanagement snare, and your team can manage the task at every level. Likewise, it makes setting clear objectives simple for the team.

The tools you use can also impact how well you can remotely manage teams. Your tech stack’s solutions can distinguish between well-organized projects and those that necessitate continuous backtracking to find the most recent information.

10. Empower your Remote Team to make Better Productivity Choices

Any productivity approach you choose will only be as effective as your team is at putting it into practice. It doesn’t matter if time blocking or something else is the key to each person’s productivity if they can only adhere to it irregularly.

Play a proactive part in helping to support your team. Permit to take a break and assist in establishing boundaries. “Always-on” workplace culture was spurred by mobile technology and has only been strengthened by our unanticipated shift to remote work.

Remote workers have been left to establish their boundaries and expectations without clear boundaries, which has resulted in much higher rates of workplace stress and burnout. Giving your team members the freedom to choose the productivity strategies that work best for them won’t solve all of your problems. However, it is a means by which they can gain better control over their time and energy.

Believe in your Remote Team:

Remote work is here to stay. The pandemic has forced people worldwide to search for better, more comfortable solutions, which has led them to accept the concept of remote employment. With such large workforce populations on board, we must focus on any potential weaknesses in remote team management. These challenges makes you to boost friendships and team bonding with your team members. Start with a small if you want to make sure that working remotely with your team goes smoothly. You will achieve the outcomes you are looking for with small efforts, certain routines, and practices. With the help of your team and 10 hacks, you can efficiently manage your team remotely and notice a big difference!

About the Author:

Harikrishna Kundariya, a marketer, developer, IoT, ChatBot & blockchain savvy, designer, co-founder, director of eSparkBiz Technologies, a software development company.