How to Track the Performance of Your Remote Team
Working from home appeals to many people because it’s flexible. Remote teams work at their pace and still achieve team goals. That’s why employers still expect excellent productivity, as 88 percent of organizations ask their employees to work remotely.
But when it comes to it, a lot more work goes into making sure everyone contributes their quota as at when due, irrespective of their “clashing flexibility.”
As the team leader, it is your responsibility not only to manage but track the performance of your team members to improve remote efficiency. So, here are five tips on how to do remote team management effectively:
5 Tips to Track the Performance of Your Remote Team
1. Make Use of Technology to Improve Communication
Effective communication is critical for the success of any remote team. Your team members must have a platform to communicate between themselves efficiently. Not only is that crucial for their productivity, but it can also help retain the interpersonal communication needed to keep them motivated.
Although email is still helpful thanks to features like email reminders, scheduling, tracking, etc., made possible by extensions, there’s still a need for instant messaging. Luckily, there are many communication platforms for remote teams. You can utilize instant messaging platforms like Slack and Microsoft Teams, for starters. A platform like Slack will help your team communicate better, plus you can create separate channels if you have team members working on a separate project.
To ensure your team collaborates better and remains on the same page, you will also require a remote team project management tool. That’s where the likes of Trello, Asana, and Monday come in. These collaboration tools will make it easier for every team member to keep track of their tasks. It also improves remote team management since it helps you monitor employee performance from one dashboard.
With Trello, for example, you can create multiple columns (for team members) and monitor the movement of cards (representing tasks) between each column. If a card stays on one column for too long, you’ll know that a particular team member has challenges completing their tasks.
2. Make Check-Ins a Priority
Isolation is one of the significant challenges remote employees face. The lack of face-to-face interaction with colleagues makes many remote workers feel isolated, lonely, and demotivated. If left unchecked, this problem can result in serious employee productivity issues. That’s why you must prioritize check-ins to counter isolation and boost employee morale.
Think of check-ins as the sessions that help your team connect, discuss key issues, and have small talk. Your team members need these sessions to feel like they’re part of a team. The sessions also open a forum where members can discuss the issues they struggle with.
To get the best results from these sessions, you will need to create several types of check-ins. First, you could have a check-in to discuss objectives and key results (OKR). This is where you will discuss your business goals for the quota or year and how close your team is to achieving those goals. This also helps your team take account of progress in on-going projects like designing a website, creating a marketing campaign, or building a product.
Second, you can have a team engagement check-in. Dedicate this session to your team members and encourage them to interact with each other and discuss their challenges and wins. You’d be surprised at just how motivating these sessions can be. You should also use these sessions to note your team’s challenges and find a way to address them.
Also, don’t overlook the need for both team and individual check-ins. You need the team check-ins to reinforce that feeling for teamwork. However, individual check-ins are also critical as they can help you identify bottlenecks that some team members may be unwilling to share with everyone else.
3. Encourage Your Staff to Communicate Virtually
Unlike traditional in-office environments, there are very few opportunities to socialize in a remote environment. Remember, there is no room for a collective team lunch in a remote environment. There is also no printer, coffee machine, or other shared resources to pull a team together.
Therefore, socialization opportunities in a remote team will only show up if you are intentional about creating them. And, yes, you do need your team members to socialize. Otherwise, they will join the over 20 percent of remote employees who confess to struggling with isolation and loneliness.
So, how do you create socialization opportunities in a remote team? Dedicate an hour or so of every workweek to socialization. You could pick Friday afternoons just before shutting down for the week. Join your staff in these sessions to have casual conversations and some fun.
You should also incorporate virtual team-building activities in these sessions. These activities will help eliminate any creeping awkwardness in your remote team. Virtual murder mystery games, for instance, can help your team members come out of their shells while attempting to solve intriguing murder mysteries.
4. Keep Track of Staff Productivity to Provide Timely Feedback
Before you can monitor staff productivity, you must first establish the objectives or goals of your team. You should follow the SMART approach to create specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound goals, i.e., SMART goals. These could be annual or quarterly goals. However, break those goals down into smaller objectives that can be tracked weekly or monthly.
Make sure everyone on your team is aware of the goals and their individual roles in achieving them. From there, you can now start to track the productivity of every member of staff. There are various ways to do that.
One, you could focus on the results produced by each member. Did everyone meet their weekly objectives? Second, you could use a time-tracking tool. This would help you stay on top of the hours your remote team spends on your work. However, it can bring about mistrust in the team if you don’t implement the system correctly.
As you track your staff’s productivity, be sure to provide feedback. Get in touch with team members who are not meeting their goals and discuss how you can help them improve. You should also recognize performing members.
5. Gain the Team’s Trust
Finally, gain and build trust within your remote team. This is critical because your ability to supervise remote staff is quite limited. You have minimal control over what they do during working hours and how they work. Therefore, cultivating trust is the best way to ensure everyone pulls their weight even without your close supervision.
How do you build trust? Start by creating an open and transparent working environment. Discuss critical policies that affect your members openly before implementing them. For example, if you want to introduce employee monitoring software, talk about it with your staff first. Tell them why you’re doing so and allow them to share their thoughts.
Additionally, you should listen to your staff and address their concerns. Also, cultivate trust by following through on your word. If you promise a certain issue will be resolved, make sure it is.
Why Keeping an Eye on the Performance of Your Remote Team
Remote teams are here to stay. Countless reports show businesses are looking to retain remote teams even after the world recovers from the pandemic. That comes as no surprise, as remote working has helped businesses acquire world-class talents from around the globe. Remote employees also embrace this system as it provides more flexibility on top of other perks.
However, proper remote team management is one of the challenges brought about by the new normal. As the team leader of a remote team, it’s upon you to ensure your team remains motivated and on track. This article shared five tips on how you can achieve that. First, utilize technology to enhance communication between your team members. You can use instant messaging and remote team project management software solutions for that purpose. Second, prioritize check-ins to ensure everyone is on the same page.
Third, encourage your staff to communicate and socialize virtually. Next, track productivity and share feedback with your team. Lastly, gain and cultivate trust within your team.
That’s it. With those tips, we’re confident you’ll be able to manage your remote team better. Good luck!
About the author:
David Campbell is a digital marketing specialist at Ramp Ventures. He helps manage the content marketing team at Right Inbox. When he’s not working, he enjoys traveling and trying to learn Spanish.
5 Tips to Track the Performance of Your Remote Team
- Make use of technology to improve communication
Your team members must have a platform to communicate between themselves efficiently. Not only is that crucial for their productivity, but it can also help retain the interpersonal communication needed to keep them motivated.
- Make check-ins a priority
Think of check-ins as the sessions that help your team connect, discuss key issues, and have small talk. Your team members need these sessions to feel like they’re part of a team. The sessions also open a forum where members can discuss the issues they struggle with.
- Encourage your staff to communicate virtually
Socialization opportunities in a remote team will only show up if you are intentional about creating them. And, yes, you do need your team members to socialize.
- Keep track of staff productivity to provide timely feedback
Make sure everyone on your team is aware of the goals and their individual roles in achieving them. From there, you can now start to track the productivity of every member of staff. There are various ways to do that.
- Gain the team’s trust
You have minimal control over what they do during working hours and how they work. Therefore, cultivating trust is the best way to ensure everyone pulls their weight even without your close supervision.
