Best practices for creating collaboration and cohesion with virtual teams
Practical tools, great ideas and savvy strategies for successfully managing your remote teams
- Seven secrets for assembling high performing remote work teams
- Best practices for tracking off-site employees performance and progress
- Four realities managers must understand about remote team meetings
- How to coach, counsel and mentor your remote workers from afar
- The top 10 ways managers “build or kill” off-site employee trust
- How to manage the flow of information for clear communication
- How to handle off-site power struggles, politics and employee conflicts
- And more
Not being able to see employees face-to-face can really throw a wrench into your management style. Defusing conflicts, dealing with crises, delivering feedback (both positive and negative), monitoring work flow, offering support — your responsibilities as a manager get that much tougher when you can’t do it in person. Even something so simple as organizing an impromptu team meeting, or calling for a group brainstorming session can become that much more complicated when team members work off-site.
As a Distance Manager, how do you keep on top of …
- Squabbles, altercations and arguments between employees you can’t even see face-to-face?
- Discipline issues, performance problems and lack of communication between your employees and yourself?
- The back-and-forth flow of information you need to make educated decisions regarding your people and your business?
- Legal issues and employment laws that are pertinent to remote employees?
- The challenges of creating a positive, professional virtual work environment?
- Your remote employees’ day-to-day performance and productivity?
Best practices for creating collaboration and cohesion with virtual teams
Whether your employees work from home, at a remote office, in the field or travel so frequently they must check in from the road, the problems you face as a manager are increased tenfold when you can’t be there for your employees in person.
Download BrochureAssembling Your Remote Team
- Learn essential competencies every off-site manager must know
- Discover techniques to assess and hire motivated self-starters
- Develop skills to properly set up internal controls and reporting systems for monitoring individual and team performance
- Determine success by evaluating performance guidelines against key metrics
- Establish technological requirements, work flow and a process to trouble-shoot any challenges
- Set and maintain consistent quality standards by providing timely feedback
Conducting Virtual Meetings
- Establish an efficient and consistent recurringmeeting time and format
- Time saving strategies for developing agendas covering items of priority and delegation
- Discover key tips to add structure and accountability for off-site employees
- Ensure technology is up-to-date and not another hurdle along the way to meeting deadlines
- Focus on continuous improvement—eliminate work slowdowns, bottlenecks and other issues that impede progress
- Discourage unproductive status reports—focus on motivation, delivery and engagement
Building Trust Off-Site
- Learn effective strategies to build rapport and unity with multiple-location teams
- Top tips to avoid developing an “Us vs. Them” mentality
- Remember off-site doesn’t mean out-of-mind; conduct frequent “surprise” visits and provide honest feedback
- Stay connected and encourage team members to know when to call or schedule an in-person visit, versus when to email or videoconference
- Be a responsive and strong leader by providing clear direction and timely feedback to keep your employees and projects on track
- Discover strategies for strengthening remote employee morale and team trust
Enhancing Remote Communication Strategies
- Embrace differences that allow your remote teams to thrive
- Acknowledge different work styles and adapt for better collaboration
- Know your team members’ cultural backgrounds
- Extend the best of your company’s working culture to your remote employees—include them in in-office activities like costume contests, or virtual lunch and learns—extend an invitation to the yearly office party for important in-person catchups
- Stay informed of newsworthy events in your off-site employees’ geographic areas
- Identify and work to champion broader corporate goals and objectives, while explaining how they are tied to the projects your remote employees are undertaking
Dealing with Difficult Personalities from a Distance
- Find ways to manage off-site employees’ results, not their day-to-day activities
- Be proactive, not reactive—predict, diagnose and solve problems before they manifest—even when you aren’t there to take action in person
- Identify attendance problems and attitude issues swiftly and fairly
- Educate yourself on sensitive subjects like delivering performance reviews and even firing from a distance
- Learn how to “nix or fix” a seriously dysfunctional off-site team
- Develop preventative maintenance and early warning systems to identify and resolve performance, attendance and morale issues across multiple-location teams
Utilizing Technology to Enhance Off-Site Performance
- Explore technological solutions that make staying connected seamless and integrated for your remote teams
- Learn the best ways to use technology to improve your off-site team’s performance
- Streamline record retention, while making shared files assessable and protected
- Use project management tools to manage multiple tasks involving multiple participants from different locations
- Gain tips for successful one-on-one coaching, counseling and mentoring while using platforms like Skype, WebEx, GoToMeeting and more
- Learn “High Touch” technology—top ways supervisors are using technology to improve human relations