Most teams have been working from home for quite a few months now. This is unusual for many people, and many workplaces are still getting used to it. In today’s blog post, I wanted to share some best practices to manage virtual teams. These tips will ensure your team is working hard and to their full potential, no matter the distractions that are sure to come up at home.
How to Manage Virtual Teams Effectively
Set Regular Check-ins
Based on your organizational chart, which we will talk about in the next bullet, every member of your team needs to be meeting with their supervisor at least once a week. Depending on the workload, you could even do this daily. I like to set up morning meetings so everyone is on the same page for the day. For example, my marketing team meets with our marketing director daily. I meet with our marketing director usually once a week, sometimes more. However, I meet with my executive assistant every day, and we’re talking all throughout the day. Different working relationships will require different time commitments, but you need to set regular check-ins with your team.
Keep Track of Goals/KPI’s
My team did this before COVID-19, and your team should as well. You need to be keeping meticulous track of your Key Performance Indicators. This will tell you how effective your team is at achieving the company goals. It’s even more important as we work virtually because numbers don’t lie. If we aren’t getting as many live stream viewers like we normally get, we can diagnose the problem. It could be that we didn’t notify our audience well enough, or it could have nothing to do with the team. Sometimes weeks are just busy for people so they don’t tune in. That’s okay! But, you don’t know what you don’t know, so you better start keeping track!
Make the Organizational Chart Clear
I teach this all the time, but its vital that each team member knows who they report to. It’s even more important now that people are not in the office. When things go wrong or they have a question, they have to know who they can contact for what reason. By having a clear organizational chart, you are able to effectively manage a team in or outside of the office. They also need to know who they report to. As I said before, we keep meticulous track of our KPI’s which helps everyone know where we’re at on our company goals.
Set Clear Working Hours
You need to have clear working hours because the lines between home and work can easily be blurred. There is no commute home to decompress and transition into personal time, so your employees have to know when it’s okay to turn off and when they need to be on. We hold the same working hours as we did in the office, so my employees know I expect them to be working at 9 a.m. They also know that I won’t contact them after 5 p.m. unless it’s an emergency. This helps ensure your employees don’t burn out, and clear boundaries are beneficial to everyone.
How has your team been managing virtually? Let me know in the comments below! If you enjoyed this post, I have two options for you to dive even deeper! Every Wednesday evening, we host FREE live streams where we offer a teaching and answer your questions. Click here to register and learn more. We also have our live-streamed Business Mastery workshop coming up in just a few weeks. You’ll learn new strategies and best practices to make your small business more profitable in our post COVID-19 world. You can get $100 off your ticket with the code “BUSLIVE” when you register here!
