Don’t Let Remote Working Cramp Your Management Style. Here’s How.

Managing multiple teams and projects across geographic boundaries may seem like a daunting task, regardless of your management style. In fact, project managers of traditional teams struggle when they switch over to a geographically dispersed team. And this has not gone unnoticed.

A 2017 PowWowNow Survey revealed that 56% of people believe managers need to adapt their skills to manage a remote workforce. And this discovery isn’t new — in 2013, a Regus survey showed that 63% believe that seamless remote management is an achievable goal, but only if managers undertake training specifically for this purpose.

However, with a couple of tweaks to expectations and a great tool for managing workflow, the same management styles can be expressed effectively even while remote working.

As the team behind one of the world’s full-suite productivity tools, we completely understand the challenges managers like yourself will face during this era of remote working. Here are a few tips that might help you lead your team, even while apart.

Rely on results

Managers who don’t work remotely (i.e. in a traditional office) usually use busyness, working late, or other proxy behaviour to infer that an employee is effective. But the tables are turned in a remote working situation. Managers who work remotely must now rely more on results.

Unsurprisingly, that’s a difficult transition for many managers who are used to seeing their teammates at their desk. But once you’ve shifted your perspective on what makes a more effective employee, it’s much easier to manage your team members on the account of what they have contributed. Now, they’re more invested in finding the best way to get the best result in the shortest time.

However, employees can sometimes get carried away while working at home — translating to longer working hours or checking their inboxes even after they’ve knocked off.

Most of us working at Lark have set our working hours on Lark; if someone sends us an email or a message after we’ve knocked off, it sends them back a message on our behalf, stating when our working hours are, and when they can expect us back at work. We’ve discovered that it’s helped keep our work life separate from our personal life, allowing us to fully recharge for the next working day.

Complete your team before you begin

This might seem like a no-brainer even for traditional offices, but this is even more important when remote working; when the difficulties of on-boarding a new teammate half-way through a project will be magnified several times.

Completing your team will give members full context of the project, and allow you to keep track of the number of resources allocated to each project from the get-go. Not only will this avoid the age-old problem of too many cooks spoiling the broth, but will also reduce inefficiencies within the company.

Moreover, it also allows each teammate to plan his or her time according to the projects he or she has been delegated. This can help identify potential roadblocks, buffer time for unexpected situations, and in turn, reduce stressful resource bottlenecks and frustration.

Official kick-offs should be mandatory

Kick-offs whilst remote working may seem strange at first, but it’s one of the most important steps to make sure everyone is on the same page. It outlines the scope of work for each individual, allowing you to set expectations, and gives you an avenue on how you would lead the team. We’ve found that this reduces potential confusion or resentment towards a variety of management styles.

At Lark, we begin by opening a brand new channel and adding all the relevant team members to this official virtual space. It’s been helpful for all parties to know exactly who they’re working with from the start.

As the project progresses, this dedicated place allows everyone to have a team-wide discussion, rather than having separate — and often fragmented conversations with each other. Also, this facilitates smoother onboarding of any new team members, especially if you’re on Lark. Channels on Lark save the entire chat history, which will help the newly-initiated hit the ground running.

Set a team time

Even with a dedicated channel, it’s always helpful to have official check-ins regularly.

Set a regular time for team alignment meetings — whether you choose to have it every day or every week, it helps everyone see the big picture: to look back on what they’ve already accomplished, and how they can move forward. But it’s not only important for them; it’s important for you too. These regular check-ins will help you take a step back and assess if there are any potential gaps in the project, allowing you to diagnose and treat the issue before it becomes a major problem.

These routine team-times will also foster camaraderie for a more seamless working culture. Try video conferencing with Lark. Having to put a face to a name is especially important for people who have never met in real life, or even for teams who have only recently retreated into their own homes — it lends a human touch to an otherwise solo endeavour each day.

This is especially important for teams with multiple time-zones because of the differences in geography, working styles, and even culture. And while it’ll probably be a little hard to find an overlap in time, Lark makes it easy.

Lark also has an intelligent calendar that suggests available timeslots with a click of a button. And here’s just one more cool thing Lark’s calendar can do: it allows you to pen down meeting notes in the calendar itself.

Nobody will ever lose their meeting minutes ever again.

Managing your team from home isn’t as difficult as it seems. Remote working may sound like you’re far removed from work itself, but there really isn’t that much difference except that everything can be done from anywhere in the world. All you need is a little mindset shift, more communication channels within the team, and a great tool to help you out.

Lark’s got a full suite of functions that’s perfect for remote working — from video conferences to a smart calendar, it’s got everything you might need for work from anywhere. And best of all, it’s now free!

Get Lark for free by clicking here.