Mistakes on managing a remote team

Managing a remote team is becoming a common task for any leader at many offices.

Dealing with different people located in different parts of the world and with every communication being held online definitely brings a challenge to the table.

This is such a recent change that everyone is still adjusting and creating the dynamics that they believe that are best for their teams. Since this is still a work in progress and the rules of the game are not yet clearly written, mistakes at managing remote teams are not only common but also kind of natural.

Nevertheless, we want to get this done the best way possible to guarantee the best communication amongst the whole team and generate a productive and successful group of people that will create great results for our company.

So to make things easier for you and help you learn from others, here are the most common mistakes we know when managing a remote team.

1. Unbalanced information within the team

If something is obvious when it comes to remote employees is that they are not physically there. That means that the quick three minutes conversation from the door sharing some latest news or important pieces of information does not include them.

One major problem at managing remote teams is that often the remote part of the team is behind on the latest news that everyone assumes everybody knows. The result is that those people might have been losing time doing something that is not longer useful because they didn’t have the whole picture, and even more, they might take a step that results into a problem for those same reasons.

So always make sure everyone is 100% aware of what is up, and make the rest of your team aware of the importance of sharing any changes or news through the right communication channel so everyone is on the same page.

2. Inability to bond with the rest of the team

Everyone in the office has it very easy to meet after work for a drink or lunch. It is a more organic process to create natural social relationship beyond work.

But your remote team members don’t have it as easy so it is very possible that they end up feeling disconnected or left out.

As the team leader you want to make sure that everyone feels confortable in the team, welcomed and invested, so their commitment goes beyond the paycheck.

Make sure to create the channels needed to help your remote team member show their personalities and connect with everyone. You can open a group chat, create some social spontaneous meeting and definitely invest on meeting at least once a year to gather everyone in person to spend some time together.

3. Limits to grow

It is only natural that every employee joins a company with intentions of growing professionally and evolve in their career. Nobody wants to remain in the same role forever, but when it comes to remote employees it seems to feel like the possibilities to grow within the company and take more responsibilities are limited by their location and their virtual presence.

This translates into workers feeling less invested and motivated to perform their best since they feel is not going to reward them in any way, and so we loose there productivity for our company.

We need to remember to keep them motivated and give them rewards when they present great results just as much as we would if they were sitting in the office.

All in all, they key strives in treating our remote employees with the same considerations we treat the team that sits beside us, and also adapting to the particularities of the situation to create a cohesive productive team.