Challenges of managing a remote team
A remote team has a lot of benefits. But looking dark side, it has some challenges. Of course, there are some solutions to disclose.
Challenges of managing a remote team :
- Communication
- Productivity tracking
- Collaboration
- Building trust
- Managing conflict in remote teams
Challenges of managing a remote team 1: Communication
Communication is important in any relationship, although it is not easy in a remote team.
Use these methods:
- Talk with your team member, some of them need to talk more, but some of them not. So talk to get to know them.
- Luckily technology can help us. Take advantage of it and use a video call to talk in person.
- Some news should be told face to face to help you make yourself understood. If you cannot talk to your people in person, it makes sense to get through them by phone, because misunderstanding is so easy in instant messages or emails.
- Make the most of technology. For instance, there are pieces of software for a better and faster communication, like taskbrowse.
- It would help if you could make an effort to be clear about your messages and expectations. For this purpose, you should improve your communication skills. Try teemTime chat.
Challenges of managing a remote team 2: Productivity tracking
Without tracking, you cannot realize you have been using your employees’ skills and strengths correctly. It is essential to use the same measures for evaluating the productivity of on-site staff and remote ones.
Use these methods:
- Being clear in communication lets employees focus on achieving the expected goals. If you don’t show your employees what success looks like, they may never figure out what it takes to succeed. You should be clear about:
Working hours
Communication system
Regular meetings
Key dates & deadlines
Replying email
- After clarifying expectations, you’d better of tracking your team to check whether everything goes according to the plan or not. For this purpose, use software that helps you to control the team remotely. For example, you can use taskbrowse for chat, task management, time tracking, project management, and so far. Works you can do with project management software for remote team management:
Communicate with your remote team and interact in different time zones
Manage tasks assignment
Track the project progress
Track productivity
Manage timesheets
View and share information online
Organize all your project activities with project management software. Give taskbrowse a try.
Challenge 3: Collaboration
“So powerful is the light of unity that it can illuminate the whole earth.”
Baha’U’Llah
Start using taskbrowse today to collaborate with your teleworkers online.
Challenge 4: Building Trust
I find it much easier to engage with people and build trust when sitting across from them, face to face. About a remote team, you don’t have this benefit. Sometimes managers wonder whether their team members have been working or not, and team members think about the payment. In this case, being clear helps a lot.
By being transparent about working hours, project expectations, pay rates, and so on, you can build trust.
In addition, you can use the below strategies:
- Appropriate feedback: Take appropriate feedback into account to enable employees to rectify errors as they occur. Appropriate feedback needs a performance appraisal system. Give taskbrowse a try.
- Trust your employees: Use a time-tracking system to hold your employees accountable for their working hours so that you can trust them.
- Run one-on-one meetings: At first, maybe it seems a pain in the neck, but it is worth holding this kind of meeting because it makes employees feel valued. Furthermore, they could lose face if other people see they got something wrong so getting feedback in one-on-one meetings is by far better.
Challenge 5: Managing Conflict in Remote Teams
You must realize conflicts as soon as they happen, although in a remote team, as you cannot see members’ faces, it is difficult to find out there is a conflict.
Try these strategies to come up with this problem:
- Hold a meeting: In this meeting, do not waste your breath to find guilty. You are not supposed to run a criminal trial. Just state the truth of the matter.
- Let everyone talk: This meeting has been held to tell everyone that their voice is getting heard.
- Find a solution: After hearing everyone, find a solution, and let them know the plan.
- Track progress by holding a meeting regularly without fail.
If you choose taskbrowse for remote team management, we will do our best to help you succeed. taskbrowse has features like the below which can help you manage a remote team easily:
Defining and assigning tasks
Calendar to see the company workflow
Timesheet
Daily scheduling
Chat
Reports and charts and so on.