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Managing a Remote Team

by | Apr 21, 2020 | Agency Advice

What You Need to Know to Get Work Done

With all the changes in the world, more and more people are finding themselves having to work from home. It’s one thing if you’re a freelancer — you’re already used to the work-from-home routine. But if you’re a manager accustomed to directing your team within the same building, well, things have changed quite a bit, and you may suddenly be adrift in a sea of Zoom video conferences.

Managing a remote team takes extra work

Managing a remote team isn’t the same as managing a team in the next office. Even face-to-face, managing people presents challenges that require all your intellect and intuition. When you have a remote team, new problems seem to pop up every day, leaving you searching for answers or guidance.

Ray Access Is Here to Help

A small business focused on providing the best content to its clients, Ray Access was founded by two partners in Asheville, NC, but it employs contract writers from across the country. Even before the pandemic caused almost every business to lock down and self-isolate, the content writing industry didn’t require proximity. As long as a writer produced well-researched, well-written copy, it didn’t matter where that writer was located.

As a result, the partners have learned a thing or two about managing a remote team. If you’re looking for help with your own team, you may benefit from our experience. First, some background:

  • We rely on email for communication. While we make it work for us, your experience may require a more sophisticated tool. There are a number of web-based project management tools, such as Basecamp and Trello (which does not constitute an endorsement). Each has its pros and cons.
  • We pay our writers per project, not per hour If you pay by the hour, it presents different issues when managing a remote team. But you have to be willing to trust your team to work when they say they’re working while tracking how long it takes them to complete tasks.

Tips for Managing a Remote Team

The first thing you need to do is to set expectations. While we always look for exemplary work, we value communication with our team. We feel it’s better to have too much than too little. We therefore encourage our writers to ask questions regarding their assignments to get clarification when necessary. There are no such things as stupid questions.

When we hire a new writer, we send a contract, a W9 form and a document that establishes our non-negotiable guidelines, which include:

  • Requiring our writers to respond to email requests and assignments within 24 hours. That sounds like a no-brainer, but you’d be amazed how often this becomes an issue. By establishing this expectation up front, we feel empowered to enforce it.
  • Setting and honoring deadlines. We’re a deadline-driven business, so we set deadlines for every assignment. We used to provide just the date, but we discovered that writers sometimes waited until 6:00 AM the next day to deliver an assignment. Now our deadlines are at 5:00 PM Eastern time on the date provided. Lesson learned.
  • Establishing reasons for dismissal. Missing deadlines, being incommunicado or turning in shoddy work are all included in this section. Setting these expectations up front establishes a baseline for remote working behavior.

Team-Building Tips

When managing a remote team that’s house-bound for the first time, you face additional challenges. Ensure your team members have an appropriate space, the necessary equipment and a powerful enough internet connection to do the work. Provide any training they may need, whether for your project management tool or the video conferencing technology. Then give them the time to get accustomed to the new way of working. Don’t expect every team member to adapt at the same speed.

Regarding video conferencing, set the protocol early. That means showing up to meetings on time, sticking to the agenda, and reporting progress efficiently. You’ll experience some glitches early on as your team gets used to the technology, but that’s all part of managing a remote team. Another part is keeping your team motivated, which you can accomplish by:

  • Providing work-from-home tips, such as using noise-cancelling headphones
  • Making sure everyone gets a chance to contribute at meetings
  • Letting team members share their challenges and successes while working from home
  • Having food delivered to their homes on meeting day (or any day!)

Trust in Allah, But Tie Up Your Camel

At Ray Access, we give our writers the space they need to complete their assignments. We don’t check in unless there’s a problem. Our writers are pros; we trust them to do the work. We do coach new writers until they’ve gained our trust, and we do sometimes send an assignment back with notes for a revision, but we’ve hired our team because we know what they’re capable of.

When you’re managing a remote team, cross your T’s and dot your I’s. Be as clear as you can be in your communication, whether by email, phone or video chat. Realize that it’s not going to be the same as managing in-person. But give your team the space they need to perform. If they’re motivated, they’ll likely succeed — and may actually thrive — in this new environment.

Ray Access is a content marketing firm that delivers targeted words to empower your business. Contact us about your specific project to receive a quote or talk about your needs. We write website copy, blog posts, e-newsletters, and more. Everything we do is thoroughly researched, professionally edited and guaranteed original.