CONTENT
Netiquette is different when it comes to smart working compared to that traditionally followed in the office.
Remote working began to gain popularity rapidly in all industries during the Covid-19 pandemic, and revolutionized the traditional business organizational model.
Remote working proved to be a highly convenient solution by workers, so much so that it is being adopted even after the public health emergency.
Therefore, it is crucial for leaders to find solutions to effectively manage communication and day-to-day remote work with their employees.
So, let’s see what is the best netiquette for managing a remote team.
Netiquette: 5 golden rules every leader needs to know to manage remote teams
1.Schedule daily meetings
Daily meetings, also known as stand-up meetings, are powerful tools for kicking off the day and planning activities.
These types of very brief meetings, whose duration usually doesn’t exceed 15 minutes, provide regular interaction between the project manager and the team.
When working remotely, it is not unusual for employees to feel alienated from their supervisor.
Without in-person meetings, team members may lose a good deal of the communication aspect, which could turn the relationship with the manager cold.
Stand-up meetings, especially when held via video call, prevent this from happening.
2.Schedule one-on-one meetings with team members.
In conventional offices, team members meet all the time, thereby generating opportunities for work related talks and casual chats.
However, this is often an important thing that gets lost in remote work environments.
Holding regular face-to-face meetings with each of your team members is key to connecting and communicating with them.
Depending on your needs, one-on-one meetings can act as feedback and/or coaching sessions, work-related questions and answers, more informal talks, and more.
3.Implement participative leadership
From a traditional perspective, leadership means leading a group of people in pursuit of a common goal.
Yet when it comes to remote teams, a leader must do more than “simply” lead the group.
In this case, the term used is participative leadership.
Basically, the manager must be open to the idea that team members can contribute with their thoughts and ideas to activities.
This infuses a feeling of equity among employees because all important actions are taken by including their suggestions.
If you don’t know how to become a participative leader, here are some tips:
- Be straightforward in assigning roles and responsibilities to each team member;
- State your expectations clearly;
- Discuss with your group your goals and the roadmap to achieve them;
- Be open about the goal of your project and explain the ways in which everyone is personally responsible to it.
4.Hire responsibly
Although the impact of the pandemic has waned to a certain extent, remote work is currently being adopted in many companies.
Therefore, the potential for expanding your remote team in the future is high.
To make sure you hire the right people, you need to set some rules:
- Be clear about what duty your new teammate will perform and how they will make a difference;
- Share your expectations so that your new employee will know from the very first day what their part in your company will be;
- Discuss the goals you are trying to achieve as a team and how the new hire will be able to help;
- Share all the resources needed to fit in with the corporate culture;
- Devise a comprehensive and descriptive onboarding process for new hires.
5.Invest in the right tools
Having access to the right set of tools gets even more important in remote settings.
Employees need to be self-sufficient as they do not have the option of walking over to the next desk looking for answers.
This means, first of all, having the right hardware and software, such as a laptop, accessories, project management software, etc., as well as clear instructions for setting up and accessing the different software.
Asking your team members also which tools will help them most can serve as an easy way to understand what they need.
Remote project management can become even easier by using good project management software.
Twproject for example, allows you to create a true centralized hub where you can find your project plan, tasks, deadlines, resources, budget and documentation needed to get the most out of your work from anywhere, without requiring your team to work on different applications and platforms.
This is a significant convenience since communication tools, shared files, task and deadline tracking, and reporting are all centralized in a single software platform.
In conclusion, we have seen how managing a remote team is quite challenging.
As a project manager, you need to focus on management issues, set clear expectations on tasks and deadlines, choose good communication channels, and make sure your team feels supported and appreciated.
Yet all of this goes by the wayside if you do not have a tool to actually measure the progress of activities.
This is why choosing good project management software like Twproject becomes paramount when managing a remote team.
This will provide transparency, visibility and control of all aspects of your project at all times.
Plan your projects with Twproject
Image credit.