How to set remote teams up for success

“Great remote teams don’t just happen; they’re built.“

Let’s face it, distributed teams are everywhere.

They exist if the organisation has HQs in various countries or at any company which has a Working From Home policy, not to mention fully remote employees and remote-first companies.

The approach to treat distributed work is always the same. If one person is remote, everyone is remote (meaning the whole company should approach collaboration remotely to ensure efficient information flow).

But what makes a team click remotely? There are hundreds of tips available on how to use remote tools but very few highlight the equally important human aspects of it. In this article I will share what worked well for me to offer a new perspective and some advice to those in need.

Step 1: Foundation and structure

Distributed workers rely on far more structure than their co-located fellows do as they don’t have all the informal cues that let a small team row in the same direction. If you don’t get the structure right at the start, you will inevitably end up in a chaos of information and lack of engagement.

To build this up, you’ve got to start with the basics: to know why they are working remotely and how they want to…