Get the Most Out of Remote Teams with these Tricks and Tips
Tami Reiss is the founder of The Product Leader Coach where she works with product leaders and teams to realize their potential by focusing on their strengths.
Congrats! Your company is growing. You’re doing so well that you’re about to open another office on the other side of the country (or world). Alternatively, you maybe looking for a second or third location to expand your talent pool. Maybe you have an outside sales team that needs to be closer to prospects.
As exciting as expansion can be, having team members in separate locations comes with some challenges. But don’t worry many successful companies are full distributed (Invision) and most companies eventually expand geographically to be closer to clients.
CONNECTION = COMMUNICATION
When people aren’t physically in the same place they often feel disconnected. That feeling is a result of missing out on interactions with coworkers at an alternative location. FOMO is real at work too (think about that meeting you wish you were in…)
More accurately, it is about missing out on STORIES. Research has shown that telling stories helps create community and empathy. Sharing personal experiences with coworkers adds dimension to an other potentially transitional relationship between coworkers.
Depth of relationship with teammates often translates to employee satisfaction. It also often leads to more streamlined and open communication. Without this depth people may lack the ability to speak freely when something is going wrong which can lead to missed timelines or incomplete products. Projects also seem to take longer to execute because asynchronous communication is inefficient. No one wants buggy products that take longer to build, and you definitely don’t want your shiny new office to be to blame.
What can you do to foster connection across locations? Below are some ideas that I’ve seen work, but they are by no means an exhaustive list. Please send me things that have helped improve connection where you work so that I can add them to my tool belt.
Give everyone time to talk:
This seems obvious but I can’t tell you how many times I’m in a meeting where the person on the screen has to fight to be heard. When everyone is giving an update or opinion, make sure to intentionally include the virtual folks too. Similarly, pause and ask them their thoughts on topics that are being discussed. Mix things up where you ask them first instead of last so that they don’t feel like an afterthought or that everything has already been said.
Pretend Everyone is Remote:
If you’ve ever been on conference call with a group in a room, you know that you can’t always hear everyone clearly. That’s because they aren’t close to the microphone. If you miss parts of the conversation or story, you feel isolated. If EVERYONE is also dialed in (from their desk) then it’s an even playing field.
Hold Virtual Office Hours:
This can be by function, team, or just random. A time where people are available to chat about a topic on a regular schedule at a defined URL (Appear.in or Zoom rooms are great for these). You can also book a room in each office at this time and video chat from there, but that will bring back most of the normal challenges with remote conference calls mentioned earlier. Be sure to choose a time that’s convenient for multiple locations and that if you’re very spread out over time zones that every office has some office hours that are in the most ideal time for them.
Rotate where you meet up:
It’s unfair if one office is always doing the traveling back to HQ. Switch things up and visit the distributed team where they work or meet up in a neutral place where everyone can experience new things together. Each city will have a slightly different culture because the talent pools are different. By switching up the meeting location, each cultural dialect of sorts can be better felt and understood by the other offices.
Have the exec team visit the offices:
Everyone wants a little face time with the company leadership, so go out to see them. When visiting, don’t spend your entire time in meeting rooms, block off some time for your own office hours or to sit at an open area. Meet some of the team members that have joined that office, they’ll feel more connected to the company at large. Executive face time is critical to having the those employees who don’t work at “the home office” stay connected.
Be flexible with work schedules:
You probably opened a second location to be closer to your customers and align with their hours of business. That means your team there can’t have perfect overlap with your HQ. Some people in each office will need to come in early or stay late in order to collaborate with their teammates in other timezones. Be flexible about when people come into the office and how often they work from home.
The actions above will make all team members feel more included, respected, and connected. But, every company is different. What works for one won’t work for all. Which tactics have you tried? What others have you seen work?
P.s. I want to leave you with a positive note. I believe the future of work is distributed and asynchronous and if you as a company can rise above the challenges, you will be setup for greatness. Here’s some insights about how Invision, a 100% distributed team stays connected. God speed to you!
Hi! I’m Tami, the founder of The Product Leader Coach where I work with product leaders and teams to realize their potential by focusing on their strengths.
If you enjoyed this post, I am available for product leadership coaching or team training. Learn more about my services and upcoming children’s book.
