Guest blog by Valerie Chua. Valerie is a Content Specialist at Manila Recruitment, a company providing headhunting solutions for the recruitment of executive, expert, technical and specialist positions in the Philippines.
Unforeseen events like a pandemic forced many businesses to realign and adjust their strategies to continue their core operations. Some have made the switch to a remote management set-up (working from home) to reduce costs and remain in operation.
However, not all companies are built for this kind of set-up. No worries, though, as we've round-up of some helpful tips for remote work to manage your relationship with your team better and keep employee productivity up.
5 Tips for Effective Remote Management
1. Put Your Trust in Your Employees
Monitoring your employees' work every five minutes is no different from snooping over their shoulders when in the office. This practice won't make them work faster; instead, it will bring the opposite results. Remember why you hired your team members—for their skills, experience, and expertise. Trust them to do their jobs.
2. Remain Transparent
Remote team leaders must communicate their expectations and goals with their team across all levels to ensure that everyone is working towards the same objectives. You can put this in practice by establishing project roles and responsibilities from the start and explaining the crucial metrics of the project you're all working on.
3. Shape a Feedback-friendly Culture
Your communication is done online, and you don't meet face-to-face, which can be a hurdle when it comes to fostering a culture where employees are comfortable receiving and giving feedback. You can create a feedback form to manage and neutralize frustrations and misunderstandings that go unnoticed in your daily operations.
4. Do Team Engagement Activities
Working remotely makes it challenging to build relationships with your team since you don't get to talk casually over lunch or have after-work activities. You can work around this by hosting online team engagement activities, such as online quizzes or trivia nights, and maintaining a separate chat group for outside work discussions.
5. Meet In-Person at Least Once Per Quarter
No video conferencing app can beat face-to-face meetings. Whenever possible, meet with your remote team at least once every quarter to get to know one another on a different level. This can boost their collaboration and make them work better together.
If you're new with remote management, take note of the tips above to foster a positive and strong culture with your team. These can help you improve your (newly) remote workers' productivity and overall performance. Also, here are 15 statistics you need to know about home office ergonomics.
Here are a few other articles you might enjoy:
6 Ways to Increase Connectivity in the Office
The Beginner’s Guide to Commercial Real Estate Terms
Roadmap to Returning to Your Office Post-COVID-19
Don't forget to comment and subscribe!