We've been running remote teams for a long time now. If you don't know us, we're a digital product studio which has software developers working remotely for us.
Remote working is becoming more and more popular in today’s workplace. It not only appeals to employees but it helps businesses to cut costs and manage their staff in an innovative way. However, remote workers might be faced with many more challenges that your standard on-side office employee. This is why it is important to take note of the skills it takes to manage a remote development team.
Getting your remote team working as well as you'd like isn't easy, so we've got a few thoughts on how you can improve how you work together.
Some Statistics About Remote Workers
Here are some interesting facts and figures about how remote workers often feel compared to their other colleagues.
-67% of remote workers feel that their colleagues aren’t supportive of their priorities
-52% of remote workers don’t feel treated as an equal compared to other members of their team
-64% of remote workers often feel left out of vital decisions and kept out of the loop when it comes to important changes.
The challenges that remote employees face are very real, so it is your job as a manager to ensure their wellbeing is looked after and their professional goals are being met. Good communication can address these hurdles and help overcome these issues quite easily.
Building Belonging
Remote employees can often lose their sense of belonging. It is true that everybody feels that a sense of belonging is the way towards feeling included in the workplace. You need to help create a place where people feel respected, included and connected to those around them. The power of inclusion should never be overlooked, but it can be difficult when workers may be all around the globe. As a manager you can focus on the idea of inclusion and universality. Even though everyone on your team works in a different place, they are all sharing the same universal experience. Allow others to share stories between others in the organisation so that their similarities can always be celebrated.
Skills Development
Helping your remote employees with skills development can be tricky when you don’t always have face to face contact, but you can easily monitor the basic skills all remote employees should have. Their organisation with deadlines is fundamental, they need to communicate well and understand how to work well in their environment. Regular catch ups via Skype, email or Lync can help you to monitor their progress without feeling like a micromanager. You can also keep an eye on whether they are meeting their deadlines and communicating well in any situation by asking them how their workload is going.
Mental Health
You have a duty of care to look after the wellbeing of all of your remote workers. When your employees are happy and safe, it makes for a much better business. Mental health in the workplace is a hot topic, but how do you monitor the wellbeing of your remote workers? A few ways in which you can keep your remote employees’ mental health in check include:
-Setting up a group chat or social media platform for all of your workers to connect. A virtual community can help a person retain that social element of work life
-Organise monthly or weekly staff meetings via Skype
-Keep in touch with your workers regularly and address any issues they have professionally and quickly
-Make sure remote workers are rewarded and praised in the same way as on site workers are.
So consider all of the following ideas when it comes to managing a remote development team. Your employees will benefits and your management skills will be instantly improved.