3 Ways to Be a Better Remote Manager

The Evolving Landscape of Work

Following the pandemic, it is anticipated that the typical employee will desire to work remotely for almost 50% of their time. A significant demand for both flexible working hours and the option of remote employment is being expressed by the workforce.

Consequently, organizational leaders are forecasting a reduction in office space by as much as 30%. Increasingly comprehensive data concerning the worldwide transition to remote work is becoming available, and the future of the professional environment is becoming clearer.

Are You Prepared for a Digital Workforce?

This substantial alteration in work methodologies necessitates a re-evaluation of management approaches, even for those with extensive leadership experience. The challenge lies in effectively guiding a highly skilled and geographically dispersed team towards a unified objective.

How can leaders enhance their people management skills during this period of workplace transformation?

Strategies for Effective Remote Team Management

Having overseen global teams as a Chief Marketing Officer, I have successfully adapted to a fully remote management style, even while navigating a global health crisis and overseeing substantial company expansion. The key to managing the modern remote workforce lies in fostering genuine workplace transparency, utilizing data as a common communication tool, and ensuring that team members understand the purpose behind their contributions.

A core principle underlying my management approach is the belief that greater success can be achieved with reduced stress. The following three strategies have been instrumental in strengthening my team and enhancing my own managerial agility.

Authentic Transparency: Open communication builds trust.
Data-Driven Insights: Numbers provide a universal understanding.
Purposeful Work: Connecting tasks to a larger mission increases engagement.

By implementing these principles, leaders can effectively navigate the challenges and opportunities presented by the evolving world of work.

Cultivating Meaningful Work for Your Team

Research conducted by the Harvard Business Review indicates that professionals who possess a clear understanding of their organization’s goals and how their contributions support the overall workplace experience report higher levels of job satisfaction. Essentially, a sense of purpose is a powerful motivator for the modern workforce.

While articulating an organization’s core mission might appear straightforward, it’s often surprisingly inconsistent. Consider posing the question of your company’s mission to each team member; with a team of ten, you’re likely to receive a diverse range of responses.

Rather than relying on employees to independently discover your organization’s mission statement within presentations or on the company website’s “about us” section, implement the established Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) methodology.

This approach not only clarifies what employees are doing but, crucially, illuminates why their daily tasks matter. Fostering a culture of motivation through meaning is achieved by collaboratively developing individual OKRs. These should explicitly demonstrate each employee’s contribution to the organization’s broader success and serve as the driving force behind all their efforts.

I encourage my team to review their OKRs each morning as a means of prioritizing their work. This practice functions as a form of daily focus for the business. Consequently, I wasn’t concerned when a member of my marketing team experienced a significant life change with a recent relocation and the arrival of a new child. Because we had collaboratively established well-defined OKRs, her objectives and key results remained clear.

She was able to concentrate her limited time effectively, free from distractions and anxieties about disappointing the team. This provided a sense of calm knowing she was focused on the most important tasks. How can you further enhance employee engagement and reduce workplace stress? By eliminating unproductive meetings.

A survey by Korn Ferry revealed that 67% of employees feel that time spent in meetings and on calls hinders their ability to engage in purposeful work. From a managerial perspective, imagine the time reclaimed by removing routine one-on-one status updates.

I’ve personally experienced this benefit by phasing out weekly check-ins, a practice I highly recommend. Knowing my team is progressing effectively, I avoid wasting their time – or my own. This allows my employees to dedicate themselves to the impactful work they were initially hired to perform.

In turn, I am freed from the burdens of micromanagement and can concentrate on my own OKRs, such as:

Objective: To develop my marketing team through coaching and mentorship.

Key result: Achieve 100% retention of talent within the marketing team.

Is this goal easily attainable? Perhaps not. Is it ambitious and inspiring? Absolutely.

I once believed that the amount of time spent working at my computer was directly proportional to my professional achievements. However, this is an outdated perspective, particularly in today’s work environment.

With experience comes wisdom, and I now understand that investing time in supporting my team ultimately reduces my own workload. As Peter F. Drucker, author of “The Effective Executive,” aptly stated, “The less an organization has to do to produce results, the better it does its job.”

Fostering Team Alignment with Organizational Clarity

In the initial stages of my professional journey, I frequently found myself meticulously completing assigned tasks without a clear understanding of the work being undertaken by colleagues nearby. There was a lack of awareness regarding how our efforts interconnected and supported one another. Now, in a leadership position, I recognize the significant drawbacks of operating in isolated silos.

Reflecting on past experiences, I observe that duplication of effort, stifled innovation, and wasted time were common occurrences – outcomes I actively strive to avoid within my current team. Investing in personnel who function merely as components of a system is not a viable strategy.

To achieve peak performance, cultivating teamwork and effective problem-solving skills is essential. However, facilitating this level of collaboration necessitates a comprehensive understanding of each employee’s role and responsibilities, a challenge that is amplified in today’s remote work environment.

The Power of Visual Workflow Mapping

A visual workflow map offers a solution, enabling both you and your team to visualize how individual contributions integrate with one another. This transparency eliminates ambiguity surrounding roles and, from a managerial perspective, breaks down obstacles to the consistent dissemination of updated information.

While this may appear to be a minor adjustment, its impact can be substantial. Recently, I needed to connect with a member of the product development team. The question arose: Which individual should I contact?

Consulting our alignment map provided the answer. By observing the flow of responsibilities, I quickly identified the appropriate point of contact and initiated a conversation. This saved considerable time, but the benefits extended beyond mere efficiency.

Having prior insight into my colleague’s objectives allowed for a focused and productive exchange. This scenario is frequently repeated within my team. Providing visibility into ongoing projects encourages collaboration, sparks creativity, and ultimately strengthens alignment towards shared objectives.

As a leader, I am then able to observe the positive results of this approach. It allows for a more organic and effective workflow.

Transparency builds trust and understanding.
Visual maps clarify roles and responsibilities.
Collaboration is fostered through shared insight.

Ultimately, organizational transparency is not simply about sharing information; it’s about empowering your team to work together more effectively and achieve greater success.

Fostering Genuine Inclusion Through Shared Understanding

Many organizations, including ours, continually strive to build a more diverse and inclusive workplace. Achieving this goal, however, presents significant challenges. While initiatives like social media posts and diversity presentations represent initial progress, a deeper commitment is required to truly cultivate diversity within teams.

As a manager, a powerful strategy for enhancing workplace diversity involves prioritizing results and minimizing focus on procedural details. Practically, this means being flexible regarding work schedules and physical location. This approach allows for the recruitment of the most qualified candidates, regardless of background.

You can then consider individuals such as working parents, those from urban communities, or developers located internationally. This represents a tangible step towards building a truly diverse team.

Once a diverse workforce is assembled, retention becomes paramount. Cultural biases can hinder long-term employee engagement. To mitigate this, it’s essential to establish a level playing field. A universal language – that of quantifiable data – can unify the team.

When the emphasis is on objective, numerical outcomes, misunderstandings stemming from cultural differences are minimized. Everyone can readily interpret and understand the significance of data-driven results.

In fact, I actively encourage team members from the United States to avoid relying on U.S.-centric analogies. These can unintentionally exclude others and lead to misinterpretations. Instead, we prioritize numbers as our primary mode of communication, effectively bridging cultural and linguistic gaps.

While individuals may speak different native languages, the meaning of metrics like 20% growth remains universally understood. This shared understanding fosters inclusivity and collaboration.

By implementing transparent processes, enforcing a common language based on data, and providing clear purpose, ambiguity surrounding roles will diminish. Consequently, team morale is likely to improve.

This environment will encourage creativity and collaboration, making genuine diversity more achievable. A focus on objective results allows talent to shine, irrespective of cultural background.

Let me emphasize that adopting these management techniques won't diminish your leadership role. Instead, they will streamline your workload and free up valuable time. I can attest to this personally: I’m experiencing increased productivity, reduced stress, and the ability to attend my son’s soccer matches.