4 best practices for managing your teleworking teams
Managers play an essential role in motivating their teams, communicating guidelines, assigning tasks, orchestrating and coordinating everyone's work. They make sure that objectives are met, and facilitate the work of their colleagues by ensuring that their needs are met.
Since the outbreak of the pandemic and the first containment measures, telecommuting has become the norm in many companies. Faced with this new way of working, managers find themselves confronted with a situation for which they were not prepared: that of managing their teams from a distance.
Find out more about the challenges of telecommuting management, and follow our four tips for effectively managing your team despite the distance.
What are the challenges of telecommuting management?
In addition to guaranteeing the safety of employees in times of covid, telecommuting is appreciated for the many advantages it offers both companies and employees (savings of various kinds for some, time-saving and quiet working for others, etc.).
However, telecommuting is as sudden as it is radical, especially for teams who have been used to working together for a long time. As for the manager, he or she has to deal with new issues, develop new skills and adopt a new mindset, different techniques and tools, because remote management has nothing in common with traditional management.
For the manager, telecommuting presents new challenges:
- Building trust with your team when you can't see them.
- Giving instructions and asking for reports without wanting to control everything: finding the right balance to maintain a healthy relationship with the team and avoid becoming a micromanager.
- Prevent social isolation : the manager must maintain team cohesion and a sense of belonging despite the distance.
- Keep employees motivated and committed : some employees can lose their motivation when they're alone at home.
- Avoid burnout for over-involved employees : some employees may find it difficult to manage their time and balance their professional and personal lives.
Follow our advice to master the art of managing from a distance.
4 tips for successful telecommuting management
Here are four best practices you can adopt to become an attentive and effective manager despite the distance separating you from your team.
1. Establish a climate of trust
Distance can make you suspicious and doubtful of your colleagues' productivity. However, you must absolutely avoid becoming a micro manager who wants to control everything, and monitor his or her team's every move.
The management of absent employees is undeniably one of the most sensitive aspects of telecommuting. To succeed, you need to assert your authority by showing your team that you trust them. You'll often find that trusting your staff will encourage them to be more responsible, autonomous and take more initiative.
For this to work, you need to define from the outset the rules to be respected, the behaviors that will be tolerated and those that will not (for example, starting work before 10 a.m., not sending messages after 7 p.m., etc.). Finally, check in with your colleagues regularly (at least once a day), preferably by videoconference, to monitor the progress of tasks and show them that you're there if they need you.
2. Communicate constantly
Communication is of paramount importance when working remotely. You need to communicate about your company's strategy, results and objectives, as well as the current situation and future measures. You need to maintain regular communication with your staff, and encourage them to communicate with each other as well, to preserve team cohesion.
As a manager, you need to be available and ready to listen to your team members. By being attentive to their needs and the difficulties they encounter, you'll be able to propose effective solutions to resolve problems as quickly as possible, and thus ensure that they remain productive.
Ask your staff for a daily report on the progress of their tasks, and make a point of meeting each member of your team individually and virtually to review their work and state of mind.
3. Use the right tools
Successfully managing your telecommuting teams also means implementing and using the right tools. Today, there are many software applications that facilitate communication, file sharing and the organization of remote team work.
Choose telecommuting software such as Wimi to organize your teamwork; instant messaging and videoconferencing tools to communicate ; a document storage and sharing app to centralize all your files and exchange them easily; and any other useful tool specific to your business sector.
For added simplicity, you can create a digital workspace that brings together all your tools, documents and data in a single place, easily accessible to all your employees, whenever and wherever they are.
4. Cultivate team spirit
The role of the manager is essential in maintaining team cohesion, especially when employees are teleworking. Gone are the days of coffee machine breaks or team lunches to forge links and exchange ideas with colleagues. From now on, it's up to the manager to act as a link between himself and the members of his team, to encourage social relations between employees in order to cultivate team spirit and maintain a sense of belonging.
There's no shortage of ideas for this: organize virtual lunches or coffee breaks, initiate non-work-related conversations on instant messaging, communicate regularly via videoconferencing and meet face-to-face from time to time.
Conclusion
Managing telecommuting teams effectively can be a real challenge for managers. By taking into account the challenges of remote management and following the best practices cited in this article, you'll be able to overcome this challenge and keep your staff motivated and productive despite the distance.
Article translated from French