Many global firms manage distributed teams across multiple time zones and countries. However, more organizations will need to invest in distributed workforce management due to the growth in remote work. An Upwork study found that 22% of American employees will be working remotely by 2025, with 41% of employees currently working on a hybrid basis.
Some global leaders are apprehensive about the challenges of managing virtual teams. However, a Stanford study found a 13% increase in remote team productivity. A GitLab study also showed employing a distributed workforce produced other benefits, including increased efficiency, less bureaucracy, and improved documentation. Remote work also has challenges, such as time zone management for distributed teams, motivating remote employees, maintaining consistent communications, dealing with cultural differences, and more.
Distributed workforce management involves implementing best practices for managing remote teams, motivating remote employees, and leveraging AI-powered remote work productivity tools. Let’s examine key strategies for establishing effective remote team leadership and improving performance.
Best Practices for Managing Remote Teams
Begin With Onboarding
One of the challenges of managing distributed teams is the lack of in-person contact. Improving remote team performance begins with an effective onboarding process. The goal is to integrate new employees with the global team across different locations. Engage HR and other employees in developing and implementing the onboarding experience.
To help establish an effective onboarding process:
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Create an onboarding plan that enables new hires to become familiar with your corporate culture, work processes, and job expectations
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Use digital onboarding tools to provide easy access to training information and materials
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Set up one-on-one virtual meetings and group video conferences to develop personal connections and answer employees’ questions
Need help with onboarding employees in a new country? Alberni can answer global employment questions, generate employment contracts, and streamline your team’s onboarding experience.
Set Clear Goals and Expectations
Effective performance management for remote employees depends on setting clear, realistic goals. Ensuring they understand those goals provides purpose and direction. Being precise in goal setting reduces miscommunication and misunderstandings, and helps remote employees to more effectively meet deadlines and expectations. Clearly describe both business-level and team-level goals, define success for each type of goal, and establish performance benchmarks.
Goal-setting strategies can also include:
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Introducing goals during the onboarding process to get buy-in from distributed team members
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Implementing performance metrics for remote teams that include quantitative benchmarks with clearly defined targets
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Using a SMART goals framework (or something similar) to outline key objectives
Manage Without Overmanaging
Effective remote team leadership includes allowing remote employees to manage themselves. Overmanaging can interfere with the benefits of having a distributed team.
Empower the people under your charge to make their own decisions and be responsible for their performance. This creates a greater sense of ownership in their duties and the company’s success.
Managing virtual teams while empowering them to manage themselves involves:
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Providing technology that enables remote employees to provide project and progress updates, collaborate with co-workers and team members, and share insights
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Delegating tasks with specific outcomes and metrics
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Training remote employees in self-management so they can set schedules, prioritize tasks, and manage their workload
Schedule Regular Team Meetings
Communication is essential for maintaining performance with distributed teams. Schedule regular team meetings to stay up-to-date on progress, discuss and update plans, provide and gather feedback, and create unity with your team. Set specific meeting dates and times to ensure communication is part of remote employees’ routine. Check in with employees to maintain open channels of communication. Encourage distributed team members to reach out when they have questions or concerns, and to share ideas and feedback on projects and plans.
Apply the following strategies when scheduling team meetings:
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Assign a purpose and agenda for every meeting (i.e., no random meetings)
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Use video conferencing software and tools (e.g., Zoom, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams) to support meetings and conferences
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Schedule meeting times several days in advance to support time zone management for distributed teams
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Prioritize these meetings and avoid last-minute rescheduled or canceled touchpoints
Implement Remote Work Productivity Tools
Invest in the right platforms, software, and AI-powered applications to streamline operations, automate routine tasks, and ensure connectivity. Include AI in remote team management to support efficiency and productivity. Ensure technology is user-friendly, robust enough to handle a growing remote employee workforce, and integrates with your technology stack.
AI-powered technology can improve productivity through:
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Automated notifications on projects, meetings, and events
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Project management, task management, and remote team performance tracking
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Document creation and reporting
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Collecting, organizing, and analyzing, data
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Scheduling, recording, and transcription of video meetings
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System security and access control
Support Distributed Communications
Distributed team management depends on consistent and effective communication. Remote team collaboration tools (e.g., telephones, email, live chat, in-platform messaging, video conferencing) support communication between management and remote employees. These technologies support ongoing communication, as well as team interaction and performance management.
Effective communication combines both synchronous and asynchronous options:
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Synchronous communication involves real-time interactions (e.g., phone calls, live chats, video conferences), enabling real-time feedback and decision-making
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Asynchronous communication (e.g., emails, voicemails) enables remote team members working across different time zones to leave messages, providing recipients with greater flexibility in when they respond
Provide Frequent Feedback
Working in the same physical office space makes it easy for managers to provide feedback. Managing and motivating remote employees requires establishing a more structured feedback system. Set up a frequent feedback model that includes check-in meetings between managers and remote employees. This develops greater trust and comfort, ensures open lines of communication, and increases responsiveness to feedback.
Consider the following remote employee feedback methods:
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Regularly recognize, celebrate, and reward individual and team accomplishments
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Foster a culture of innovation by encouraging remote employees to share their ideas and suggestions
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Support open and constructive dialogue, engage in constructive criticism, and allow employees to express their opinions
Offer Continuous Learning Opportunities
Remote employees should be able to take advantage of the same resources as their in-person counterparts. Provide distributed teams with continuous learning opportunities to create a culture of innovation and enable them to adapt to changes in the industry. This creates more loyal and satisfied employees and helps the organization to be more competitive.
To support continuous learning opportunities:
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Support ongoing skill development by providing an education and training budget (e.g., career-related courses, subscriptions to online learning platforms, membership in industry associations and events)
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Host professional development webinars, seminars, and workshops that align with remote employees’ professional interests and organizational business goals
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Encourage remote employees to spend part of each week or month on learning and integrating new knowledge and skills into daily tasks
Build a Culture of Trust
Remote employees must trust the organization and management to provide direction and support in doing their best work. Focus on results by providing remote employees with enough autonomy to work as befits their skills and individual styles to meet individual, team, and organizational goals.
To help build a culture of trust:
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Measure success based on outcomes rather than individual actions; this instills trust, supports efficiency, and encourages innovation
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Enable remote employees to perform tasks using their preferred methodology; this creates a greater sense of ownership and responsibility and allows them to feel more valued and understood
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Promote personal interaction and community through in-person events, online team-building activities, and other virtual events; encourage non-work-related conversations to support a more engaging remote work environment
Respect Cultural Differences in Remote Teams
Effective remote team leadership involves working across different geographical boundaries, time zones, and cultures. This requires managing and integrating their differences into your organizational workflow. Plan and schedule meetings, projects, and workflow that consider team members’ time zone differences. Respect cultural and religious beliefs to foster a more inclusive and supportive work environment. Consider the importance of work-life balance for remote teams in different cultures.
Partner with an EOR
Your focus should be on performance, productivity, and business growth, not on the administrative burden of hiring and paying globally distributed teams. You can partner with an Employer of Record (EOR), who will handle the administrative tasks of managing employment contracts, payroll processing, tax filing, benefits administration, and more.
By partnering with an EOR, businesses avoid having to establish a foreign entity and alleviate the complexities and risks associated with hiring global employees. An EOR is a great solution for businesses that are rapidly growing and wish to quickly and compliantly explore new markets and hire international top talent.
Boost Performance and Productivity
Managing distributed teams involves identifying and overcoming unique challenges, such as time differences and cultural variations. Effective strategies for managing remote teams combine traditional best practices with the latest technologies. Implementing these approaches to managing their performance and productivity will help to create a more cohesive, higher-performing remote workforce.
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