Successful remote team working.

Working remotely was once seen as a “perk” however, with the current crisis we are finding it a necessity.

Although there are benefits to remote working being thrown into has some additional challenges. For those managing and caring for a team the question of how to keep them engaged and aligned with your charitable efforts is forefront.

Here are four tips to engage more effectively with your remote team:

1) HAVE A CLEAR COMMUNICATIONS STRATEGY. Nothing ruins your ability to generate effective team engagement more than a poor communications strategy. This applies even more to remote team members. Having a clear message, sent to the right people, that allows for feedback to be given is the best way to stimulate engagement and hear newly generated ideas or initiatives, and ensure people feel cared for.

2) HAVE SET GOALS. Working remotely relies on a high level of trust and having set goals helps build that trust and give the team a collective sense of achievement. Working from home often means that you don’t work the traditional office routine, so setting realistic goals and deliverables with deadlines will go a long way to helping team members be more productive and focused. It also helps individuals to get their job done whilst giving them the freedom to achieve their deliverables in their own way.

3) ASK QUESTIONS AND SEEK FEEDBACK. If you want to build engagement with your remote teams, you need to ask questions and seek feedback from them. It can be as simple as sharing content that generates a discussion or creating a quick anonymous survey to find out how the remote tema feel about something. I like using Slack to have informal conversations and share vital information.

4) HAVE PATIENCE. For many of us remote working is new, so we need to have patience with setting up our communications and how we handle working remotely. I am sure you have already discovered that your Skype or Zoom calls can drop out due to a poor internet connection. Unexpected interruptions will happen, my dog loves bombing the conference calls. Be understanding that this method of working is vastly different from the rigid ways of working we’re all accustomed to.

Have some patience, give some flexibility, and you’ll see quickly that your remote team will be more productive, more engaged, and contribute more during this trying time. You may even want to carry on with some level of remote working once the crisis is over.