"My team works from home, but are they really working?"
5 Tips for Helping Your Remote Team Be More Productive (during covid and beyond)
Worried that your remote team is hanging out in their PJ’s all day? Read on…
Now that the corona virus has many of us working from home, are you wondering if your team is really “working?”
Maybe the team has asked about working from home in the past, or you have read articles about how remote teams are the wave of the future, but you’ve resisted diving in. Now that we have been FORCED to make way for remote work culture, I have a question for you:
How do you feel about it now?
Are you wondering if your team is at home having pajama parties, playing games, and doing excessive amounts of online shopping and nothing work related is getting done?
Next hard question: If that’s the case, why did you hire them to begin with?
Now that your brain is mulling these things over, let’s get into some tips on how to make your remote team more productive.
1. Trust them. If you can’t trust your team to work when you are not there to lean over their shoulder, then maybe their shoulder (and the rest of them) shouldn’t be a part of the team (and maybe you should be revisiting your hiring and onboarding process).
The fact is, trust is a HUGE issue for a lot of “managers,” but not as much for effective leaders.
If you are anything like me, this might be a hard thing to put into practice, especially if you have bought into the concept that it’s a boss’s job to be a dictator. But if you want to lead your team to greatness, instead of managing them by being fearful and reactive, it’s time to start trusting and giving the team autonomy.
If you make trusting the team more of a habit, you might be surprised by the results.
It’s kind of like the first time your kid drives a car by themselves, or trusting that a risky decision you made will work out. Trust not only in the capabilities and responsibility of your team, but in your decision to hire them in the first place.
2. Set realistic expectations. And don’t just set them inside your own head. The team needs to know what’s expected of them so they have a roadmap for staying on task.
And sometimes saying it once isn’t enough.
Ok let’s be real, it’s NEVER enough to say it just once. Communicate expectations often, especially during a crisis when things might be changing from day to day. Say it during the virtual meeting. Say it in an email. Say it on a phone call check-in.
Notice that I slipped the word “realistic” in there.
We are in a middle of a pandemic and it’s affecting everyone (and every industry) differently, so set goals for your team that are ambitious but realistic for your specific culture and business. (This is where tip #4 comes in, but don’t skip #3!)
3. Recognize performance. Before the pandemic, we could measure how “hard” someone worked by how many hours they put in.
But did you know that out of an 8-hour workday, studies have shown the average worker was productive for only 3 of those 8 hours?
And that was in an office, before corona virus.
Now we are at home dealing with all the distractions that come with working in quarantine (stress, worry, home schooling kids, spouse laid off, health issues, the list goes on and on). All of this can make things more complicated.
Because we are not really “punching a clock” anymore, we have to come up with new measurements for productivity.
This is an actual graph based on fictional data. Source: my imagination.
Is your team completing the projects being assigned to them in a day?
If the answer is yes, then it shouldn’t matter how long it takes them to do it (4 hours or eight hours). In fact, if they are getting it done in less time, that just means they are working efficiently. If you notice some team members are better at time management, have them give a quick webinar about best practices to the rest of the team.
We all have the same 24 hours in a day, but if it takes Jane one hour to do something and John two hours, should Jane be forced to sit at a desk for the extra hour pretending like she is “working?”
If you answered yes, then you just punished Jane for being more efficient.
That old way of thinking is bad for morale, which in turn negatively effects productivity (hey wait a minute, that’s what we were trying to improve in the first place!)
When you see team members performing well, recognize those wins individually and with the group. Use specific praise for a job well done (gold star stickers are my fave).
4. Practice empathy. Everyone deals with crisis in their own way. And when we are talking pandemic, all “shoulds” go out the window. Some have kids at home. Some have compromised immune systems. Some have loved ones who are sick. Some have spouses who are out of work. Some are having anxiety while others are transitioning well to work-from-home life.
Make space for all of these situations. There is no right or wrong way to “do” a pandemic or quarantine. None of us knows what we are doing or can predict the future.
But we can be a support system for one another, create a little joy for ourselves, and develop new ways of doing things that will carry us through to the other side (the other side exists I promise).
When the team sees that you are human, too, AND they feel supported, they will be more productive.
5. Ask and LISTEN. Ask team members how you can help them be more productive. Then LISTEN.
Be honest with them, and welcome their honesty in return. LISTEN.
Ask them about what’s going on at home, make sure they have the tools they need, or if they have ideas about how things can be done better.
Then… (you guessed it) L I S T E N. And don’t just hear their words. Listen to what they are saying and take into consideration their ideas and requests and concerns. Talk about new concepts with the entire team. Make any necessary changes.
When the team feels heard, they feel valued. And when they feel valued, they will be more productive.
Caring about your team does not make you a weak manager, it makes you a strong leader.
Part of caring about the team is giving them the tools to succeed.
The one concept that ties all of these tips together is communication. When working remotely, it’s even more important create strong habits of communication and transparency to develop a healthy culture.
What’s your favorite tip, and how will you implement it in YOUR remote work culture?
If you want to dig deeper into how we can work together to develop YOUR remote work culture, let’s chat!