Working remotely brings out its own challenges to your business. You need to lead virtual team to keep your business operation runs smoothly. Leading a virtual team is not so easy because working from home itself can be a thing that makes some of your employees at their best performance to say the least. Some of them may prefer working from the office. It is easy to experience burnout even when your teams work from comfortable place like home.
How to support your virtual team remotely
The way we work has changed significantly since the global pandemic hit and we can do nothing but adapt. Implementing working from home policy is not as easy as it sounds because there are may things to handle to make it work. Here are some tips for you to support your virtual team during remote work:
Establish good communication
Communication is key is any type of relationships whether personal or professional one. Good communication helps your team remain productive and engaged with their work. Make communication a regular thing to ensure everyone stay on task and meet all the objectives. You can hold weekly meeting to check in your teams, asking their well-being, etc. Then, you can discuss a topic about projects, tasks, etc. Hold another meeting halfway to ask if your team face any challenges or difficulties with their tasks. Open your communication lines such as phone call, email, or message to let them know they can contact you when necessary.
Consider cross-training
Cross-training can be a good way to keep your virtual team fresh and excited. Enable your teams to switch works or perform other tasks outside of their typical job description. This will work especially for smaller teams. This strategy can also help foster creativity within your team and company. For example, you can appoint sales staff to assist with the hiring and recruiting. This way, they have some variety of their day-to-day tasks. It is a good way to support each other in the team. Not to mention that it is also good to build open-learning culture in the company.
Increase flexibility
One of the best way to increase your employees satisfaction and wellness is by providing them more flexibility to their working hours and workdays. This is not only good to optimize their performance but also to encourage them to have a good work-life balance. By giving them space to focus more on their well-being and family, they will be more satisfied with both their work and life. You can implement flexibility in many ways such as having an afternoon off, a no meeting day, or shorter working hours on the weekend.
Asking feedback from your team
To give the right support, you can also open an honest discussion with your team to let them give their feedback. Let them spill their thoughts and ideas of how to work more efficiently within remote culture. Each of your team may face different challenges so this is a good opportunity to plan the best strategy.
