Managing an offshore or remote team can be challenging, but good management is rewarding and beneficial for your career and the business. If you manage an offshore or remote team, consider the following tips to make you a more effective leader.

Choose your team communication channels carefully

The communication channels you choose heavily affect your team’s collaboration and productivity. Consider which types of communication need to be in real-team (synchronous) and those that don’t (asynchronous). Choose messaging apps like Slack and Teams for asynchronous, routine updates and reports. These platforms help keep your team organised and collaborative. For the more important information and discussions, choose synchronous communication channels, like video conferencing platforms such as Google Meet and Zoom.

Choosing the right tools helps maintain easy and effective communication between your team members and/or between you and your team members. In doing so, keep in mind to monitor and change these channels or add new ones if necessary, but don’t overwhelm your team with too many channels.

Ensure that your team members are always up to date

Make sure that important information is communicated clearly and continuously. Keep in mind that communication issues can heavily affect your team’s productivity and task efficacy. You don’t want to deal with missed deadlines, duplicated tasks, or lack of focus in your team. 

A survey done by Expert Market shows that 86% of employees and executives cite miscommunication as the core reason for workplace failures. Avoid this by assigning remote management roles and scheduling weekly meetings for your team to discuss progress and important updates and issues. You can also ask your team members for feedback and tips to improve communication.

Define a clear-cut organisational structure

Defining a clear-cut structure is essential for any type of business, but if you have a remote team, it’s more critical. Deficiencies in organisational structure can cost your team. Think about a team in which members don’t clearly understand their roles and responsibilities or don’t know what is expected of them. This would lead to underperforming or overworked employees.

Making sure that everyone understands their role starts with a comprehensive training and onboarding process for new team members. Ensure they clearly understand the hierarchy, reporting structure, key responsibilities, and how to use company tools and resources. Once this is achieved, you should keep a close eye on team members and ensure that everyone knows who to turn to if they need guidance.

Foster team building in your remote team

On-site teams may have a better chance of fostering a collaborative environment since they interact face-to-face, but team building is possible within remote teams as well. Ignoring the importance of team building will negatively impact your company. Your team members will feel isolated and disconnected. It goes without saying that this will lead to a lack of motivation, missed innovation opportunities, and low productivity. Your team members will also be more likely to seek opportunities elsewhere.

If you seek long-term success, invest time and resources in team-building activities. You can use team-building platforms like escape rooms and games. You can also organise icebreaker activities like team challenges, quizzes, and sharing non-work related conversations. This will help your team members build healthy relationships with each other and establish trust. If possible, organising face-to-face events and in-person gatherings to break the ice is also a good idea.

Build a remote team culture

If you ignore the importance of building a team culture, you’re missing out on something crucial to success. Your employees will not have the necessary motivation and engagement to accomplish their goals, nor those of the company. Brian Chesky, Co-founder of Airbnb, describes the essence of company culture when he said: “Culture is simply a shared way of doing something with passion”.

Create a vision for your company, with clear values and missions. Make sure to communicate these with your team and to have everyone understand them. Your team will feel more engaged and connected to the company.

Make sure your remote team has the necessary resources

When you’re running an offshore or remote team, it’s harder to be up-to-date with your team’s needs. Make sure you provide your team with tools and resources for both their professional and personal development. You can give them access to professional training programs, personal development programs, and wellbeing hubs and platforms. This way you can ensure that your employees are doing well and are up to date with the latest industry trends.

Last but not least, respect work-life balance

It is easy to set boundaries between the personal and professional life for on-site teams, but it can be quite hard for remote teams. Unless you want to have an exhausted, underperforming, and unmotivated team, you have to work on this.

Start by setting clear expectations for working hours and urge everyone to respect them, including yourself, and avoid sending work-related stuff outside their working hours. You should also encourage your team members to take regular breaks throughout the day to recharge their energy and avoid burnout.

Final words

To wrap up, establishing a friendly and collaborative work environment is the key to success if you are managing a remote team. By doing so, you can keep your team interactive, motivated, and productive.