Remote teams present their own set of challenges when you’re responsible for managing them. Since the pandemic, many more organizations have embraced a remote working or hybrid working environment.
While that’s great for providing flexibility and hopefully a better work-life balance for employees, it can be hard for managers who are used to staff being in-house at all times.
Adapting your management style is important to ensure you’re successful at managing your team from a remote position, especially when it comes to construction. With that being said, here are six tips to help manage your remote teams effectively this year.
- Use a field service management application
If you’re trying to manage remote teams, then you’re going to want a platform whereby you can access your team’s whereabouts at all times. The BuildOps field service management is probably one of the best software options to have because it helps to monitor your staff and their working days.
It can check where staff are pulling their weight and where they might not be at times. Of course, there are times when procrastination occurs but when they’re working on company hours, every hour needs to be utilized as effectively as possible.
Introducing a piece of software such as this one is a great way to help keep in communication with all staff and for them to be able to access their working calendars, as well as relevant customer data.
- Overcommunicate at all times
Overcommunicating is something that you definitely want to do more of where possible. The more you can communicate with your team, the more everyone is switched on to what needs to get done and when.
Not communicating with your team will leave them to their own devices for too long. While you want your remote team to be independent when working, you don’t want to leave them in the dark for too long without any direction.
As a manager, it’s important that you’re doing everything you can to ensure communications are active at all times. You should though, set some boundaries when it comes to making sure your own work gets done on time. Platforms that allow you to alert staff of when you’re away and when you’re at your desk are useful to implement too.
- Check-in for feedback from your staff members
You should be doing everything you can to check in with staff members on a regular basis. Feedback is important and it’s something that you should be able to give and receive.
Consider what feedback you’ve given your staff so far as a manager and how you could help encourage the same feedback being given back. It’s important to create a clear and transparent communication channel between yourself and your team.
They should feel confident that they can be honest with your management style and make suggestions for improvement where needed. Checking in with your team members should be something you’re doing at least weekly, if not on a daily basis. Even if it’s for five minutes every day, it can make a world of difference.
- Host video meetings regularly
Video conferencing is one of the main ways you’re going to be able to communicate effectively with your team and members of the team. It’s become a saviour for many businesses, particularly during the pandemic when traditional businesses that didn’t work remotely, couldn’t communicate in any other way.
When managing a remote team, make sure you’re hosting video meetings regularly. This will certainly be helpful to stay connected with your team at all times, rather than having to do a lot of the conversations over email. Email conversations are also likely to be less efficient when it comes to getting a response quickly.
- Have a clear structure to your day
What does your day look like currently? It’s a cluttered and unorganized mess? If that’s the reality of your management structure currently, then it definitely needs to change quickly.
Having a clear structure to your day is going to allow you to tick off all the necessary tasks that need completing, while still being able to be present to your team.
- Encourage team collaboration
Finally, as a manager, your role doesn’t mean you should be doing everything and anything at all times. A team collaboration approach is always the best way to ensure the whole team is happy. They all support one another and help one another when the time is right.
As a manager, it’s important that you’re doing everything you can to encourage this, not only for their benefit but for yours too. Hopefully, these tips will help you manage your remote teams effectively this year.
