How to build a strong culture with a remote team

Managing a remote team can be challenging. It's quite different from the classic meetings in the office. When working remotely, your employees are not within a few meters of reach from you. Collaboration, communication, and team-building activities in a remote environment take a different shape. It’s important to nurture all three aspects to build a strong culture with a remote team.

To help you navigate, we shared tips for managing a remote team.

Top 3 tips for managing a remote team

1. Choose the best collaboration tools for remote teams

Collaboration tools are the foundation of every remote team. Among the best collaboration tools for remote teams are Microsoft Office, Slack, Asana, Monday.com, and Trello. What are the differences and how to pick the right one for your remote team?

Let's review features of the best collaboration tools for remote teams on the market-

I'm sure you're already familiar with Microsoft Office. In contrast to all the other mentioned platforms, Microsoft Office is an all-in-one collaboration platform. It has everything one remote team might need – email, video conferencing, file storage, chat, to-do list.

On the other hand, Microsoft Office doesn't have the best project management tools. That's why, along with Microsoft Office, many remote teams use Asana, Monday.com, or Trello.

Trello is ideal for making lists and breaking tasks into smaller steps. Asana is more advanced than Trello and offers a detailed project overview. Lastly, Monday.com has a clean dashboard overview useful across different departments. All these platforms support attaching and linking files. They are a great addition to Microsoft Office.

Slack is an alternative to Microsoft Teams Chat. It can be divided into different topics. Usually, it's used in the IT industry to keep track of the latest updates on the projects. Everyone on the topic has visibility into the communication and progress. If you make more than 2-3 changes in a day, it's much more convenient to track it in Slack than send an email, spam the chat, or write on the dashboard.

Among the best collaboration tools for remote teams, don't choose more than three. With more collaboration tools, you are risking overwhelming the team. It might be a lot for your remote team to track all the information in various platforms

2. Set up consistent remote team communication

Consistent remote team communication doesn't mean bombarding your team members with messages. After choosing collaboration tools for your remote team, decide how the communication will look like.

To keep the communication flowing, set up frequent one-on-one meetings. If you have a bigger team, you can do a weekly or monthly group call to run through the updates across departments. Team members will feel more included knowing what’s happening in the company.

Set up a weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly internal newsletter. For the team members who are living in different parts of the country (or even world), the newsletter is the best form of consistent remote team communication. Sharing personal stories and their background will make them feel closer to each other. Also, as a leader, you’ll gain more information on your team’s personalities and abilities.

Organize more informal activities and meetings. Fridays are the days where every employee is waiting to wrap it up and enjoy their weekend. Make those Fridays a little bit shorter by introducing coffee breaks. Randomly pair your employees each Friday for a 30-minute video call.

Consistent remote team communication cannot happen without your involvement. As a leader, show up at these internal activities and get to know your team.

3. Organize easy team-building activities for remote employees

While usually, team buildings are weekend trips, with employees scattered around the globe, a trip isn’t the best option. There are many other doable easy team-building activities for remote employees.

A round of the good old game of “Never Have I Ever” will get the remote team closer. It can start with easy statements, all the way to the trickier ones. Make it more interactive with Mentimeter, displaying statements along with a team member’s (anonymous) answers.

Every year there is a Movember initiative that raises awareness about men’s health. There are different ways to participate as a remote team. Download the app and grow moustaches, run or walk 60 km during November and raise funds for a good cause. Similarly, there are other causes your remote team might be passionate about. Explore it and see how to include everyone in a challenge or a contest for a special cause.

Other easy team-building activities for remote employees include:

• Hire a stand-up comedian
• Create a virtual Happy Hour
• Watch a movie together
• Introduce a virtual book club
• Do a virtual group yoga (or other exercise)

Set up contests inspired by different holidays – best Christmas decorations, scariest Halloween costume, most creative Easter egg.

How to boost remote team productivity?

Choosing the best collaboration tools, setting up consistent communication, and organizing easy team-building activities for your remote team are already a good foundation that’ll boost remote team productivity. However, there are a few more things to watch out for.

First impressions are everything. Make sure to have a high-quality onboarding in place. New team members need to feel welcomed in a new environment. Create a fun guide where everything is explained. Knowing their benefits, how to use collaboration platforms, who to reach out to in different situations will save a huge amount of their time.

In a remote environment, one thing that will most definitely boost remote team productivity is responsive IT support. If your laptop decides to die or you cannot access a certain platform, it’s important to have go-to IT professionals. Don’t forget to have them available in different time zones.‍

Automate everything you can. Repetitive tasks build up frustration. It’s hard for a team member to progress in their career if they are tackling too many monotonous assignments. Boost your remote team activity with tools that will help your employees grow. Automate emails and build up templates for all the collateral.

Like automation, outsourcing or restructuring is the key. Invest time to understand your team’s workload. It’s going to be hard to boost remote team productivity if they are already doing more than they should. Give them an opportunity to offer solutions and ideas for automation, outsourcing, or restructuring. Since they do their job every day, sometimes they’ll have a better idea of what to improve upon than the management.

While remote work can have many benefits, one of the downsides is isolation. Set up mental health and well-being incentives. Create a system to find out how your team members are feeling on a weekly or monthly basis. It’ll give them a sense you care, and you’ll be able to take action based on their answers.

Other ideas to boost remote team productivity:

• Work with an HR platform for the remote team.
• Provide remote health insurance.
• Offer a cost-of-living budget.
• Pay a membership in a gym.

If all the mentioned activities don’t boost remote team productivity, set up surveys and individual calls to detect potential problems. There might be something that’s under your radar.

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