Making Remote Work, Work

• 22% of Americans...

  

  ....work from home, while nearly 50% are involved with remote or virtual team work. This continuing shift calls for a new range of behaviors and skills.

  How to Collaborate Effectively If Your Team Is Remote

• Communication challenges for remote teams

  

  Body language . Even when we’re co-located, the tone of a text or the formality of an email is left wide open to interpretation, creating anxiety. The delay between our messages can often postpone or hide emotional reactions to our comments. Lacking an immediate response, we can become distracted, second-guess ourselves, or even grow frustrated with our teams.

  How to Collaborate Effectively If Your Team Is Remote

• 3 types of distance in remote teams

  

  Physical (place and time) Operational (team size, bandwidth and skill levels) Affinity (values, trust, and interdependency). The best way for managers to drive team performance is by focusing on reducing affinity distance.

  How to Collaborate Effectively If Your Team Is Remote

• Best practices in virtual teams communication

  Communicate with the intention of being ultra clear , no matter the medium; Don’t bombard your team with messages ; Establish communication norms : create new norms that establish clarity in communication; See the hidden opportunities in written communications : especially for those who might be less inclined to speak out in groups; Create intentional space for celebration .

  How to Collaborate Effectively If Your Team Is Remote

• Communication norms

  Companies such as Merck have created acronyms for their digital communications like: “Four Hour Response (4HR)” “No Need to Respond (NNTR)” They bring predictability and certainty to virtual conversations. Individual teams can also establish their own norms — e.g., to use or not use Slack, Google Docs, or Whatsapp groups.

  How to Collaborate Effectively If Your Team Is Remote

• Hire the right people

  Design your hiring process with remote candidates in mind. Look for 3 main things: A strong skill set relevant to their jobs : you need to feel confident that they can complete basic job tasks independently. A candidate with an affinity for remote work . Hire candidates who share your company’s values :  they’ll fit in faster if they share your cultural code.

  I've managed a remote team for four years. Here are the 5 things you can't ignore

• Put extra effort into onboarding

  Remote workers won’t have the opportunity to partake in conversations or team lunches, but there are other things you can do to help them settle: provide info with new job critical stuff : team member introductions (personal bios, photos, advice for new employees), HR training links, task checklists, long-term goals, and more. assign mentors to new hires , who schedules regular video check-ins, make themselves available on Slack and make new employees feel welcome.

  I've managed a remote team for four years. Here are the 5 things you can't ignore

• Set guidelines default working setups

  Remote workers need a dedicated, quiet space to do their work, so it’s important to set some guidelines : encourage workers to join coworking spaces; encourage workers to set a dedicated insolated space at home for working, with suitable furniture; fast reliable internet; They can still work from a coffee shop every once in a while, but they need a good default setup. 

  I've managed a remote team for four years. Here are the 5 things you can't ignore

• Make time for face-to-face interactions

  

  Look for ways to build strong relationships: use video calls - team communication tools fundamental human elements like body language and tone; host team retrats - you’re saving money by not renting physical offices, so why not funnel that money into team bonding .

  I've managed a remote team for four years. Here are the 5 things you can't ignore

• Trust your team to do the work..

  

  ...but chek in from time to time. Watch how project unfold in tool lile Trello, Confluence and Slack. That way, you're not bugging direct reports for status updates, but you still understand what's happening.

  I've managed a remote team for four years. Here are the 5 things you can't ignore

• Team

  It's important to assemble a team that's capable of executing in a remote environment: Hire doers : they will get stuff done even if they are working from a secluded island. Hire people you can trust. And trust the people you hire ; Hire people who cand write : communication is one of the most important parts of remote team - good writers are critical to a team's success. Hire people who are ok without a social workplace .

  How to Run a Remote Team

• Software/Tools

  

  In a remote team, you'll need the right tools to make sure everyone stays on the same page and can continue to execute without a physical person standing next to them. While the exact tools aren't super important, you likely will need a tool in certain categories like group chat and video conferencing to make remote successful.

  How to Run a Remote Team

• Processes

  

  Good processes let you get work done in the absence of all else. It provides structure and direction for getting things done. A few examples from Zapier: Weekly Hangouts; Weekly One-on-Ones; Bring the team together 2 times/year somewhere cool; Automate anything that can be automated.

  How to Run a Remote Team

• Over-communicate

  It’s always safe to assume people don’t know what you’re thinking.  And you’ll find the more you communicate with others, the more they will reciprocate.  Ask questions, tell the team what you’re doing, be responsive, and get over that you think you’re bugging them too much. The more you communicate, the shorter the physical distance between you appears.

  How to be Effective at Working Remotely

• Conflict in virtual teams

  

  ...is more likely more likely to escalate, because: Colleagues are more likely to take disagreements personally when they can’t see the context or the nuance or even the facial expressions of the person who is engaging in this task conflict. Communication is often impersonal , so it encourages a back and forth that escalates more quickly than during in-person encounters.

  Lindred Greer: Why Virtual Teams Have More Conflict

• Share Frequently and Get Feedback

  Constantly send screenshots and ideas.  Give your team a glimpse into your head throughout the day so they can see your creative process.  Make it known that you should share your unfinished work in progress. A single reply from a teammate can steer your entire project in a better direction. Get feedback on your work early on so you can evolve sooner.

  How to be Effective at Working Remotely

• Build Trust

  

  Build trust in your team by constantly reminding them how dependable you are.  You can do this by being the first one to respond in threads, providing your feedback, leading initiatives, and not just delivering your work on time, but delivering it early.

  How to be Effective at Working Remotely

• Managing conflict in virtual teams

  

  Assign tasks that demand interdependence  among team members to complete, so that they rely on each other to succeed. Set clear goals. Formalizing the team’s vision, roles, norms, work processes, and strategies can help keep a team on track. Awarding teamwork is crucial to encourage them to work together and discourage an individual from going off the rails. Be patient. Teams often overcome problems of virtuality over time.

  Lindred Greer: Why Virtual Teams Have More Conflict

• Openly Voicing Your Opinion

  

  People have short term memories, so keep hammering it in that you’re here and you have an opinion.  Provide feedback on other people’s work and be convicted, without ego. Be understanding and find that balance in the difference of opinions without ending in a dreadful compromise.

  How to be Effective at Working Remotely

• Set Expectations

  It’s up to you to make sure your team knows how to work best with you, as well.   If they aren’t regularly sharing progress with you, bug them. Ask them questions every day. Make it known that your awareness matters a lot, and affects the outcome of the project.

  How to be Effective at Working Remotely

• Different setups of remote teams

  Satellite teams : 2 or more teams are in different offices. Remote employee s: most of the team is in an office, but a few single employees are remote Fully distributed teams : everybody is remote Remote first teams : which are “basically” fully distribute, but have a non-critical-mass office; they focus on remote-friendly communication. Remote teams are usually the fully distributed teams and, if done right, remote-first teams. The rest are hybrid setups.

  Managing Remote Teams - A Crash Course