How do you manage your team from a distance? Mistakes to avoid and best practices to apply

Remote management: is it the same as traditional management? While certain principles are common, managing from a distance comes with its own set of issues, pitfalls to avoid and challenges to overcome.

Distance reshuffles the deck, and while international companies with teams scattered across different countries are well aware of this, many companies have discovered it as a result of the massive use of telecommuting since the pandemic.

What are the challenges of remote management, and what are the mistakes to avoid? How do you manage remotely? We take stock in this article.

The challenges of remote management for the company

Challenge no. 1: managing your teams

How do you manage a team without being in the same workplace?

The manager needs to :

• distribute the workload,
• monitor task progress,
• set objectives,
• define priorities, etc.

What's more, how can you assess everyone's performance when you can't see them?

In addition to tools, it's vital to put in place methods to continue managing your team effectively.

To keep in touch and monitor progress, a quick daily team meeting is a good start, as is a more in-depth weekly meeting with department heads.

Issue no. 2: tool appropriation

Remote working necessarily means implementing digital tools to ensure continuity of activities, wherever employees or managers may be.

They are becoming indispensable for :

• communicate,
• participate in meetings,
• access information,
• work collaboratively,
• manage daily tasks, etc.

Choosing and implementing tools is all well and good, but it's essential to ensure that they are fully adopted and mastered by your teams. A poor grasp of software can have a negative impact on productivity and performance.

💡The adoption of tools by your teams is therefore an important point to monitor, and you shouldn't hesitate to set up coaching to optimize it.

Issue no. 3: maintaining team spirit

It's a real challenge to maintain or create a bond between individuals who rarely or never meet.

We're talking about :

• the relationship between team members,
• and the manager's relationship with the team.

Team spirit arises quite naturally in the company's offices, due to the many interactions in the open space, in meetings, at lunch or at the coffee machine. How do you create or maintain it when these interactions are reduced, and teambuildings are no longer possible?

One of management's missions is to find another way of keeping the team together. This is all the more important as a good team spirit promotes :

• productivity,
• motivation
• and employee well-being.

Remote management: 5 fatal errors to avoid

There are a few pitfalls to be aware of when dealing with remote management. To help you avoid them, here are the 5 most common fatal errors to avoid.

Later in the article, we'll be revealing our best practices for successful remote management.

Mistake no. 1: the temptation to control everything

By virtue of its subordinate relationship with employees, the company has the right to control their time and work.

With the massive shift to telecommuting during the pandemic, the question of remote control and surveillance has come up a lot. The proof is in this figure:

Since the pandemic, intentions to purchase remote employee monitoring software have multiplied by 530 in 6 weeks.

Score d’intention d’Aberdeen, 2020 par ISG research

At the same time, the health and economic crisis is having an impact on managers, with :

• increased pressure on teams to deliver results,
• forced recourse to remote working, which implies a lack of control.

This particular context has led to the emergence of excessive micromanagement behaviors, with a need to control everything, sometimes more than in a face-to-face setting.

➡️ Why is this a mistake?

• your teams may feel " spied on", and thus create a bad relationship,
• the telecommuting context makes micromanagement even more intrusive, which can trample on the boundaries of professional life,
• increased surveillance is time-consuming,
• the return on investment is not attractive.

💡 Management needs to be rethought to adapt to telecommuting or remote working.

Mistake no. 2: failing to adapt management to the individual

Avoiding the need to keep a close eye on your staff doesn't mean you shouldn't adapt your management style to each individual, especially in the current climate.

➡️ Why is this a mistake?

The widespread use of teleworking implies that it is not systematically desired. It's a way of working that doesn't suit all employee profiles.

Some people need a framework that separates their professional and personal lives. Others don't know how to manage their time and may be distracted by things to do at home.

Marianne Auriac, coach en management interrogée par Cadremploi.

The manager's role is to ensure that everyone is working in optimal conditions, by taking stock of each situation, and then proposing the most appropriate solutions.

Examples of solutions include

• set short-term or long-term objectives,
• offer training courses to those who feel the need,
• provide more regular check-ups if the person feels the need, or on the contrary, allow more freedom in organization,
• adapt schedules by incorporating more flexibility if the person has personal imperatives (sport, picking up children from school), etc.

💡The idea is to create an ideal telecommuting formula adapted to each individual.

Mistake no. 3: lack of organization

Embarking on a remote working mode without getting organized at managerial level can prove risky for the smooth running of the company.

➡️ Why is this a mistake?

Remote working leaves no room for improvisation or approximation. It requires a certain organizational rigor which, if not applied, can slow down the company's activity due to :

• ill-defined roles
• unclear priorities,
• complicated or obsolete processes,
• inability to access documents or information,
• difficulty reaching certain contacts, etc.

Mistake No. 4: Neglecting communication

Do you trust your employees, and do they trust you back? That's a very good thing! But that doesn't mean you don't need to communicate regularly.

➡️ Why is this a mistake?

At a distance, exchanges and interactions are very limited, so the manager's role takes on an essential dimension in order to :

• avoid misunderstandings and interpretations,
• ensure an equal level of information for each individual,
• pass on essential company information (new hires, departures, major changes, news, etc.),
• maintain a sense of belonging, etc.

💡To be noted: communication must be fluid in the other direction too. Don't make the mistake of betting everything on top-down communication, and stay open to listening to your collaborators.

Mistake 5: Underestimating the importance of well-being

According to the French Labor Code, "the employer shall take the necessary measures to ensure the safety and protect the physical and mental health of workers".

It is therefore the company's responsibility to ensure the well-being of its workforce, even when they are working outside company premises.

➡️ Why is this a mistake?

Beyond the company's committed responsibility, neglecting the well-being of its employees means denying itself an overall improvement in performance. According to a 2018 Harvard/MIT study, being happy at work makes employees:

• 31% more productive,
• 2 times less sick,
• 6 times less absent,
• 9 times more loyal,
• and 55% more creative.

In the context of teleworking, close monitoring of well-being even becomes a necessity to avoid the risks of :

• dropping out,
• overwork, as employees tend to work longer when they're at home,
• ill-being due to feelings of isolation, etc.

How to manage from a distance? 6 best practices

Train yourself in remote management

If this type of management is new to you and your organization, and you're finding it difficult to manage remotely, why not ask your superiors for remote management training?

This will enable you to learn and master the basics, so you can apply it successfully on a daily basis!

Make trust a pillar of your management approach

Trust is the cornerstone of any long-distance relationship. Over and above the simple fact that you can't control everything, trust fosters employee empowerment. And autonomy is a particularly important value in telecommuting conditions.

So why not start by setting an example? For example, by :

• being honest in all circumstances,
• being transparent about the situations you encounter,
• passing on the information you have,
• communicating to the subject the things that work, and those that don't.

👉 Accept that you can't control everything, and that this is harmful to your organization. Grant your trust, and let your teams be flexible in their schedules and organize themselves as they wish, while remaining available to help them achieve their goals.

Establish a results-oriented culture

Controlling the presence of your workforce from a distance is time-consuming, ultimately inefficient, and can undermine the climate of trust you want to establish.

Working remotely is an opportunity for the company to move from a culture of presence to a culture of results, if this is not already the case. This means evaluating your employees on the basis of the work they do, rather than the time they spend there.

To do this, it's important to be well organized. Start by :

• setting SMART objectives, ideally in conjunction with your teams, to ensure that your assessment is as close as possible to reality on the ground (e.g. increasing website traffic by 5% per month by writing 5 articles per week for the blog),
• define the most efficient work processes that each team member can apply to increase efficiency,
• gather feedback from teams as part of a continuous improvement process.

Maintain team spirit

Remote working eliminates almost all interaction between colleagues and with the hierarchy. What remains are meetings, but these are not the kind of social occasions you'd expect.

And yet, the feeling of belonging to a team is an engine of growth for a company, and increases commitment and motivation. So it's important to avoid everyone feeling isolated, and to recreate everyday moments of company life virtually. This is no easy task at a distance, and often requires extra time and effort.

The aim is not to impose all these moments, but to provide spaces for getting together where everyone feels welcome and wants to take part.

💡 Here are a few ideas:

• organize a team lunch by videoconference,
• virtual coffee breaks to recreate these moments around the machine,
• schedule a short daily team meeting of around 15 minutes, along the lines of a daily scrum,
• make instant communication software available to recreate informal exchanges between colleagues.

Promote work/life balance

This work-life balance tends to become more fragile when an employee telecommutes.

Freedom of organization can make it difficult to set this limit, and employees are naturally tempted to extend their day, since they no longer have to commute.

The role of the manager can be to help reinforce this balance by :

• raising awareness of the right to disconnect;
• helping those who wish to do so to plan their week at , with a disconnection timetable to encourage them to finish the day;
• inviting employees to put away their work equipment when their day is done, especially if they don't have a dedicated room at home;
• setting a good example by disconnecting at a reasonable hour;
• don't contact employees outside working hours.

Choose the right tools

Digital tools are essential for maintaining activity, but also the link between individuals in the company.

🛠 Here's a sample toolbox:

• videoconferencing software for meetings, HR or performance reviews, but also for customer appointments;
• document management software to centralize and share documents with your teams;
• instant messaging software for informal, spontaneous communications, or when you need to get things moving quickly;
• project management software to track the progress of projects, team tasks and the achievement of objectives.

👉 And to ensure effective digital adoption, don't forget to take the necessary care with training and monitoring everyone as they learn.

Remote management: the new norm?

The recent spread of telecommuting has forced companies to adapt to remote management, often without being properly prepared.

This paradigm shift has often revealed dysfunctions in the company, including at managerial level.

The companies that were able to cope most calmly with the crisis were those that already knew how to operate remotely, and those that didn't hesitate to question their model in order to move things forward.

What about you? Are you used to managing from a distance? What lessons have you learned? Share them with us in the comments section!