The remote working team is common today because the business model is not fixed in an office context. Coworking space and virtual business have led to new forms of working which is a remote team. A remote team includes members who do not work close together yet work online. While an in-house team works together in an office, members can directly exchange ideas face-to-face, remote team members can work anywhere, perhaps at a coffee shop, at a library, and exchange ideas online. Therefore, to a team leader, managing a remote team may not be an effortless task. How to manage a remote working team? This article will help answer this question!

It is a likelihood that to manage a remote working team well, besides the management skills of managers, team members should have good commitments. Hence, before suggesting ways to manage the team, the required characteristics of remote team members will be presented. 

Characteristics of effective remote team members

First, a team member working remotely should be well-disciplined and self-motivated. Setting a timetable and a neat working space will boost your internal motivation for working. Because remote members do not work at a fixed office, it is advised to force yourselves to build discipline with a view to avoiding distraction in case your working environment is not really quiet and peaceful.  

Second, a remote member can work successfully if he/she has a good organizational habit. The detailed working plan may not be essential; however, a to-do list for a working day should be mapped out so that required tasks will not be missed and affect the working flow of other days. Besides a list of to-do things, time management skills are also significant while you are working remotely. Obviously, a small task should be done in a short period of time, then you can invest much effort and time in more challenging projects. To avoid time imbalance between tasks, you can estimate how much time you spend on completing task 1 and task 2. 

Third, a remote member should have good commitments and communication with other team members. As you are working in distance, keeping contact with each other frequently will help you feel that you are part of a team. A harmonious relationship is such a great catalyst for a “want-to-contribute” working attitude. 

How to manage a remote working team for a team leader

Based on a profound article published by McKinsey, some skills to manage a remote working team are definitely useful for team leaders. 

Build an effective and logic working structure and flow

A team should work under a clear guideline and set ultimate goals to motivate team members to achieve that goal. The structure includes the deadline of each task, working flows between members and the communication tools. Furthermore, when hiring new employees, you can decide their working style, whether they are suitable for working remotely with credible qualities or they would like to work in the office or they grow faster in a close-knit group. Such a clear working procedure will certainly help members follow better while they do not work in front of you. 

Lead from distance and nurture caring culture

Management is not a simple skill, especially when you have to manage those who are in a home-working environment. Therefore, having a well-defined vision and practical outlook can encourage members to contribute to the benefits of the team. Leaders had better energize team members, foster them to reach the results.

Additionally, nurturing good and caring communication is useful to understand your team members and fill the void of physical interaction. Actually, remote working may have pressure on workers, for example, work and take care of children simultaneously. As a result, listening, expressing sympathy, and giving advice to your staff would create a sense of community and be a part of that. The psychological safety generated by continuous interaction and caring is an intrinsic motivation for remote workers. 

Diversify ways of communication

Communication is crucial for anyone working in a team or an organization. When team members do not gather in a specific place, communication is more important and is a thread to connect people. According to the article “A blueprint for remote working: Lessons from China” published by McKinsey, there are five communication channels for remote working. 

Communication channels are matters and leaders should choose the suitable one. A private call is the best choice for individual catch-ups and sensitive discussion. A leader and a member having a private call can easily build a harmonious relationship as they may discuss secret topics. Video conference is perfect for exchanging ideas on difficult themes with a large number of participants.

Leaders can choose video conferences as weekly meetings, project reports or training sessions. Chat is a common communication channel in which social team talk or urgent questions or guidance will be mentioned there. Video captures and voice notes are best for tutorials, especially for team members working from home while email is a form of formal communication inside and outside the company. 

Take the advantages of technology

Choosing the suitable communication tools, so which tool will help you to communicate effectively with your members? Nowadays, communication apps and gadgets are created to fit with each type of communication tool. To make the best use of these gadgets, first effective remote leaders and employees require external factors namely fast and stable internet connection, then let ensure that wifi or Internet module is working well. 

Some example tools are suggested in the article published by McKinsey. For video conferences, Zoom, Google hangout, Ding Talk, Webex, Tencent Conference are suggested meanwhile We Chat Business, Slack, Rocketchat, Hipchat, Basecamp, Microsoft Teams are frequently used for channel-based communication. Trello and Asana are the two best tools for leaders to manage the tasks and progress of each project. 

Regardless of the communication tools you use, the most important thing is the technological security of remote working. Besides, approaching technology to boost productivity, managing data confidentiality is also significant. 

Have learn-and-test attitude

The situation constantly changes. Knowledge is continuously updated. If a leader does not learn, share ideas frequently, it is not easy for him/ her to guide the team to follow the trend of the market. In addition to management skills, learning attitude is crucial for any leader. 

Besides acquiring knowledge about management skills for a remote team, you should also understand how an enterprise is established in Vietnam.

In conclusion, the remote working team is popular today, especially in the context of the Covid-19. Manage a remote working team may require a team leader to have a little bit different method to connect members. However, regardless of the way of management and where you work, both leader and team members should ensure the effectiveness and commitment to their tasks.

Coronavirus is currently on the top of concern worldwide as a result of the fact that its impacts are spreading in all aspects of the socio-economy, disrupting all activities from daily life to work at offices. In order to avoid the spread of the dangerous virus,  a lot of businesses have taken the remote working plan into account and carried out methods to manage the performance of employees when they're not coming to the offices. 

So, "how to effectively manage remote working teams during the coronavirus crisis" is the hot question that many team leaders have currently. This article may help you to conduct jobs as effectively as possible despite the crisis outbreak.  

Remote working - the new trend during coronavirus outbreak

To ensure the health and security of employees under Coronavirus pandemic, a variety of companies have required their staff to work from home but ensuring the productivity of work. Welcome to the new normal, where managing a remote working team is a skill you'll rapidly need to learn.

Social media platform Twitter has urged its employees to work from home, as part of its efforts to limit the further spread of the coronavirus. Tech giant Google and investment bank JP Morgan are also among the companies reportedly testing out remote working policies as a precaution. 

And in Vietnam, since the "war" against Coronavirus entered the second phase, a series of companies in many industries, from big brands such as Vingroup, Vinamilk, AB Inbev, Nielsen, Tiki,etc to start-ups have officially applied remote working. Since then, there is a need for having an effective way to manage remote working teams because direct management is impossible. 

How to keep teams well-managed while remote working?

1. Establish daily check-ins

In every work environment, creating a daily check-in routine is an important way to set priorities and foster connections. Instead of face-to-face greetings at offices, a morning check-in via video chat, phone call or instant message can create an atmosphere of discipline while working from home. These check-ins can be one-on-one or held among small groups. You may follow many styles of check-ins such as via an attendance app or a virtual meeting via Zoom, etc. Revamped meetings that adapt specifically to remote workers can help you maintain productivity.

2. Create motivation for the enthusiastic support

Don’t forget timely compliments and rewards

For outstanding results, give more specific compliments to employees in private conversations and/or on the company's general communication channel. This is also an opportunity for employees to pass on their work experience to colleagues, encouraging the will of both sides to strive. When employees report that they have completed a task, do not save simple encouragement such as "Good job!", "I have received it." Thank you!". Furthermore, a reward is also an effective means to stimulate employees’ willingness to support.

Give usual care for your team

Do not make the work time be full of work. Team leaders can also make use of lunch breaks to care about their staffs’ daily lives during COVID-19, how they prepare their lunch or how about their families’ health, etc. Creating time and space for workers to talk about news, hobbies, and other topics — just as they would have done in the office — helps them relieve stress and feel better connected.  It is essential to create a cozy and relaxing work atmosphere. 

Inspire remote working teams to build their dedicated workspaces

Dedicated workspaces can help free employees from the normal distractions from home life. Understanding many parents’ needs to be at home with their children due to school closures, an office away from family can allow you to maintain focus and stay on task. Even if this office is a temporary makeshift space — such as a guest room, basement, attic or walk-in closet — this can help you mentally separate work from home.

Be flexible

Staff working hours should be more flexible. Because, in a given time, your employees have a lot of ongoing work. Trust your team and give them the freedom and flexibility to get the work done on schedule and most effectively. That is good for your team in a long term.

3. Helpful remote teamwork tips

The major difference between working at offices and remote working is the indirect management that may not facilitate leaders to well manage their teams and conduct the work productively. There are some effective tips that team leaders should follow to ensure work progress despite not coming to offices:

• Break down into individual jobs, set specific deadlines, and assign them to individuals, not to the whole group
• Set up the flow chart and follow the process from the smallest jobs
• Continue to make periodic work reports
• Remain effective remote communication
• Share the meeting agendas and take note on cards to ensure every employee can catch up

Especially, communication in remote work - if done improperly - will lead to the break of the flow of information, "inconsistency" means that work efficiency is significantly reduced.

So how to effectively communicate during remote working?

The most type of communication in teams is a meeting for discussing internal jobs or,  in other word a “video call”. A short meeting can be videotaped, edited with distractions and shared with everyone in the company. Video meetings don’t need to be time-bound. Often enough, Trello team members will simply co-work over video on Friday afternoons, chatting (or not) when it feels right.

Supporting tools for remote working teams

As the name implies, these are tools to help your employees collaborate on their daily work, while managers can easily control the progress and workload. In Vietnam, a variety of popular applications you should bear in mind as followings:

• Trello: was built based on the method of intuitively work management following items. Its strength is appropriate with medium and small businesses, easy to use and to intuitively keep track. 
• Asana:  is a to-do list management software and Kanban model, suitable for the model of inter-functional groups or large companies. Asana has outstanding features such as good communication, visual reporting, but a high cost
• Jira: is an application for tracking and managing bugs / problems in projects, best suited to technology companies. Jira's outstanding features such as extremely detailed decentralized functionality, modular systems and auxiliary development toolkits allow for extremely high customization and integration.
• Base Workflow: is a software for managing and automating business processes At a reasonable cost, Base Workflow owns an advanced decentralized system and custom data for each step, allowing linking processes. Besides, inter-departmental collaboration and integration are great.

Additionally, you can get insights about Vietnamese businesses during the Coronavirus pandemic collected and conducted by Viettonkin team.

To sum up, remote team management has never been so easy, especially when this sudden change due to Coronavirus broke out. However, the above suggestions will be useful for leaders and make the operation management of the team become simpler and more effective. If any difficulties have still existed, our Viettonkin is always a powerful hand for you.