Managing A Remote Team

For many NGOs, the COVID pandemic necessitated remote work arrangements for most employees. Although the development of several effective vaccines heralds an eventual end to the pandemic, numerous employers in the public and private sectors have decided to continue remote work indefinitely. Managing a remote team takes the already difficult responsibility of management and multiplies its complexity. 

I managed more than thirty direct reports -- all of them living in cities other than my home base in Brooklyn -- for more than a decade. I retained 92% of those people by relying on these principles. 

Forge Closer Relationships

Perhaps the biggest challenge to remote work is that it deprives you of some opportunities to grow closer with your team. You have fewer chances for chitchat when you cannot run out for coffee together.  Nor are there as many shared experiences that become the funny stories of the future. For most managers supervising remote teams, they will need to deepen their relationships with their teams using just the regular work appointments on the calendar. 

To develop closer relationships with your remote team over the phone or through a video call, you can start by showing vulnerability and openness. Being vulnerable and sharing feelings at work can be difficult even in person, and working remotely strengthens most people’s inclination against it. As a manager, you can encourage your team to overcome their inhibitions by sharing more about yourself. You could talk about your hopes and wishes once the pandemic ends, or you could share your concerns about a friend or family member. Deep connections happen when both people are open and reveal parts of themselves, and great managers can lead the way through doing. 

The best manager I ever worked with, my dear friend and colleague Ed, displayed the other key way to forge closer relationships: taking a real interest in the important stuff in your people’s lives. I learned early on that when Ed asked you how you were doing, it was never meant as a throw-away question or as idle small talk. Ed honestly wanted to know, and he always listened to what you said and followed up. It turned into a conversation. If I told Ed that I was not feeling great, he wanted to know why, and soon I was sharing things with him that I would not have shared with most people. Sharing parts of myself has always been scary and difficult; I have avoided the feeling of vulnerability. When I was speaking with Ed, that fear subsided, and I would share thoughts and feelings that I usually kept close. The reason was that Ed showed me from the start that he cared to get to know me, and that he genuinely wanted to hear what I had to say. I could tell that Ed could see each part of me, and that he valued the experience of getting to know me well. He really saw each individual person he encountered, and he treated them with care and dignity. We can all strive to be more like Ed in managing our remote teams.

Method Matters

The methods through which you interact with your team matter a great deal, never more so than when you are working remotely. To identify the right methods, I try to imagine how I would communicate with my team if we were sitting next to each other. If I had a simple question, I would tap a team member on the shoulder and ask them. I would not instant message them from across the room. It is easy to Slack or chat a remote team member, but I always try to call them or just save my question for our next appointment. The problem with instant messaging or even email is that it can be ignored. I do not want to be ignored, and even though I myself ignore people, I can see that it’s a bad habit! It’s best to break the habit by stopping doing it. Use the phone as much as you can. 

Another important method is seeing your team members in action. I think it is valuable to hear self-reflection, but it is also valuable to see someone doing something unfiltered through their own interpretation of it. For example, if I am managing someone who is also a manager, then I could ask them how an important meeting with their team went. But I would rather make time to join the meeting and listen in. I always gleaned new information about how the manager was working with their people, or I picked up on subtle ways in which team members were dissatisfied or unhappy. The more you can drop in on your remote team, the more you can see what might be going on and the more you will observe. 

Building A Team

Fostering a collective identity while working remotely can be one of the hardest management responsibilities to accomplish. So much of team identity comes from doing things together, and working remotely deprives you of most of the opportunities to do that. 

Conference calls

Conducting a great team conference call each week is hard to do well, but it can be powerful. The key is to treat a team call as a chance to build a shared sense of responsibility, a unity of purpose, and the spirit that we are all doing something cool together. I have noticed most conference calls are used to disseminate information, or to bring a disparate group together to gather data or knowledge, or even to get a team to do its work. I would not drop these uses, but I would either minimize time spent on them or do them separately. 

A great team-building conference call for a remote team should involve brainstorming and creativity. It’s a chance to dream about the future together and to get excited about all that the team could accomplish. Here are a few prompts that can turn into an hour-long team-building session:

• If we could solve every problem on our team tomorrow, then what are the next five things we should tackle?

• Let’s pick the three most unique strengths our team has -- how could we use those strengths effectively in other dimensions of our work?

• If we could take on a new project, what would you pick? 

• We won [our campaign to do X]. What could we do to capitalize on that victory and improve our long-term positioning? 

Team identity

Collective identity also coheres around shared values and purpose. In mission-driven organizations, the values and purpose can seem not worth talking about. We can take for granted that employees are knowledgeable about them. But most of us will notice slight nuances in motivation or hopes for the future within our teams. Talking about our values and purpose can provide opportunities to connect with other members of the team around theirs, and proactive openness can forge deeper individual relationships, too. Here are a few prompts that you can use to encourage your team to share:

• Did everyone read [X story] in the news today? What did you think about it?

• We have an election coming up. What do you all think will happen? Why?

• How do you think we are doing as a team in accomplishing our mission goals? What could we do differently?

• What are you most excited about in the upcoming year and why?

• Why is everyone here motivated to do the work?

Give It Structure

One of the least-appreciated but most effective roles a physical office plays is that it provides structure and reduces decision-fatigue. You have a place to sit in an office that does not change. Because everyone is there in person, it enforces standard hours for being at the office. People generally make it in and start working at 9am. There are also unseen structures. If you work near your boss, then you are more likely to concentrate on your work responsibilities instead of riding the clock. If your boss can overhear your conversations, then you are likely to try harder and perform better. 

Remote work removes many of these structures. Some employees substitute personal rules and habits, like committing to putting on pants every day or setting an alarm in the morning even if they could get away without one. But even the most self-motivating employees will miss having the structure of an office. As a manager, you can improve the effectiveness and morale of your remote team by providing structure.

You can provide structure by:

• Holding regular meetings at the same times and on the same days.

• Giving each work day a deadline (e.g. submit your weekly report in writing on this day) or an appointment. 

• Not canceling an appointment with one of your direct reports except in rare or extreme circumstances. 

• Setting parameters and expectations around hours, work product, reporting, and administration.