With the rise of hybrid working methods, teleworking is in fact challenging the remote management. In particular, he participated in the emergence of a managerial model based on the trust and greater autonomy of employees. But remote management can also respond to a desire for growth by opening or assimilating new subsidiaries. To face new challenges, discover how to manage a team remotely, in an inclusive and collaborative approach.
The challenges of remote management
Managing a remote team requires great flexibility on the part of management teams. Considered as challenges to be met, the difficulties encountered can encourage good practices, and become the drivers of change for an ever more agile and inclusive organization.
An apparent lack of control
Presenteeism, which was still valued yesterday, is being challenged by teleworking. Managing a remote team raises doubts about employee involvement, and this feeling of loss of control can lead to counterproductive behaviors:
- The use of micro-management
- Surveillance that is likely to create a deleterious and demotivating environment
In reality, remote management should be seen as an opportunity to focus on the productivity of its teams, working in conditions that encourage performance. More than a presence-based work culture, you must focus on achieving goals by providing adequate resources to your managers and employees.
Less humanized communication
Communication at a distance creates an alteration, it promotes misunderstandings and errors of interpretation due to a lack of transmission of emotions. This deterioration of relationships can be a source of psychosocial risks such as a feeling of isolation or an increase in workload.
However, the new ways of working require the establishment of remote management based on a fluid dialogue. It is essential to maintain a collaborative spirit to encourage sharing and mutual assistance, while providing answers to reconcile private and professional life and avoid digital hypersollicitation.
Challenged team cohesion
The physical isolation of teams can affect the cohesion between employees, and complicate the dissemination of an organization's culture and values.
Remote management must therefore foster a strong team spirit, an essential aspect that impacts motivation. Maintaining close relationships, digital and physical, is essential when working from home in order to fight against demobilization.
The main principles of successful remote management
Remote management is based on strong concepts, intended to develop proximity and communication between team members, as well as to maintain involvement.
Redefining everyone's missions and goals
Successful remote management requires the transmission of accurate information on the missions and roles of each person. Managers should set concrete and achievable goals by promoting the delivery of short-term deliverables. Employees need to understand the importance and nature of their contribution to the business.
Establishing a climate of trust and equality
Trust forms the basis of remote management, because remote work is synonymous with the autonomy of employees. Since disparities in levels of trust can make the management of remote work even more complex, managers must be fair and agree to no longer control their employees on a permanent basis.
Valuing the work of each collaborator promotes the adherence of all to the business project.
Demonstrate availability and flexibility
Remote work and management can place employees in isolation. As their need for support is often exacerbated when working from home, it is essential to make yourself available to them. To ensure that their motivation is maintained, it is necessary to offer a framework dedicated to individual exchanges in order to respond to them in a personalized way.
Promote an increase in skills
Employees who are isolated or away from headquarters should not feel that their career is on a back street. You can integrate an ambitious and inclusive policy to increase the skills of all your employees into your remote management.
Training workshops, remotely or possibly in person, help your teams increase their skills. They gain in efficiency, and can eventually be given more stimulating missions.
Remote management: how to manage and federate your teams?
With remote work, managers face a major challenge: maintaining close relationships and a strong team spirit between dispersed employees. To strengthen cohesion, it is important to develop certain structural aspects.
Clarity and guidance to promote a climate of unity
For effective remote management, it is necessary to transition to a more flexible model, oriented towards the achievement of objectives. Since a certain framework is still necessary, the manager can:
- Use video conferencing to communicate in a more human way and maintain real relationships;
- Specify your expectations to set clear and achievable goals for all;
- Clarify missions and tasks so that everyone can project themselves into their daily work.
Promote communication and listening to develop mutual aid
Remote management remains inseparable from smooth and effective communication. It is a major lever for managing remote work, in particular by:
- Determining time slots where everyone must be reachable : concentrating the moments dedicated to exchanges makes it possible not to encroach on the personal life of employees. This gives the opportunity to identify purely executive moments that promote productivity
- Supervising exchanges so that each contact is motivated : in order not to encourage untimely interruptions, structuring discussions makes it possible to gain in efficiency and not to disperse
- Selecting only relevant channels: to avoid poor transmission or the obsolescence of information, it is advisable to integrate certain conversation tools, but not to multiply them
- Scheduling regular appointments : scheduled meetings establish a common pace of work, for better organization and good dissemination of information
- Balancing formal and informal meetings : teleworking tends to favor protocol exchanges to the detriment of convivial moments. However, it is important to encourage relaxed discussions in order to maintain team spirit
Establish working methods to facilitate collaboration
Presenting simplified but accurate work processes is essential to create organizational automation and thus better manage remote work :
- Set up rituals : structured appointments create momentum and maintain productivity and motivation;
- Establishing a culture of writing : developing note taking and reporting makes it possible to keep records that can be easily consulted at any time
- Select your tools and have them adopted : the manager must ensure the use of tools that are intuitive, flexible and accessible to all so that everyone reaps the benefits
- Determine procedures : a working framework must be clearly established and respected by all to avoid losing efficiency
Encouraging remote collaboration: 3 tips
Exchanges between employees are a real challenge in remote management. It is essential to develop effective solutions in order to streamline exchanges, avoid isolating certain members of a team and thus improve everyone's performance.
Use collaborative tools
Appropriate tools to streamline communication and collaborate effectively are essential in order to successfully manage remotely:
- Google Drive or Dropbox for data sharing and storage
- Trello or Asana for project management
- Slack to chat instantly internally
- Zoom or Google Meet for video conferencing
The internal communication software by Cenareo is fully in line with the Digital workplace set up by the company, to broadcast high-impact content easily and on all types of screens. A true multi-channel tool, it integrates with those already present and adapts to the work environment of employees. The Cenareo solution answers to the objectives of cooperation between teams in business, to promote the digital inclusion of all employees, working remotely, in the field or on site. Digital signage in business is a powerful tool for ensuring more engaging and effective communication.
Adopt strong leadership
The hybrid management and remote management are both based on the manager's ability to deploy assertive leadership. Her role is to instill motivation with a keen sense of listening and communication. To remain active remotely, employees must adopt the vision of the company, supported by the manager.
Strengthen team spirit
The manager must guide all his decisions for the collective good and consolidate team spirit by:
- Organizing group meetings and team-building operations to develop cohesion
- Promoting the essential values and pillars of corporate culture
- Recognizing and valuing work and performance to strengthen belonging to the company
Discover a flexible, intuitive and ultra-efficient method to facilitate better collaboration between your teams. The Cenareo solution dedicated to the management of its fleet of digital signage screens is an ally for the development of engaging internal communication and effective remote management.
All the news about digital signage and video
