Managing Teams while working remotely:
- Demand commitment from your team.
- Ensure you set clear expectations from your reportee(s) working remotely.
- Plan well. Ensure individuals are clear about their goals
- Define ownership, timelines, and document completion of work.
- Encourage your team to take scheduled breaks
- Set a working ritual for the team. Below are some of the recommended rituals
- Daily Stand-up with the team (to set expectations, updates on previous day’s achievements. Use a simple update format like:
- What was planned?
- What got completed?
- What got delayed?
- What was carried forward?
- Office hours - All members of the same team commit to being online and fully responsive for the same period of time every day
- May not be the entire 8 hour work day, to allow team members flexibility in their working schedules
- g. Team A commits to being online from 11:00 - 17:00 every day
- Team members must be on Slack, Workplace Chat and respond to any queries or pings in these tools at this time
- Weekly 1:1 with the team members (not just a work review!)
- Weekly Team Reviews and updates
- Ensure maximum documentation for work/meetings so that it is easier to set the context without relying on verbal communication.
Managing meetings while working remotely:
- Send and encourage pre-reads for every meeting. Align the members on the agenda
- Encourage employees to join on video calls. It results in improved attention
- Ensure meetings are inclusive (Listen to everyone. Don’t let silent voices go unheard)
- Pause at times. Engage to understand if everyone is on the call or if anyone has dropped-off/is facing a technical issue
- MoMs should be captured for every meeting. Assign responsibilities in advance
Keeping team engagement levels high:
- Schedule a call every morning to gather updates from the team
- Ensure team rituals are diligently followed