7 Best Practices for Managing a Remote Team

INTRODUCTION

Over the past few years, every firm has been transformed by COVID-19. Most likely, your firm has found ways for every employee to work remotely. Driven by forces both cultural and environmental, the world is moving away from consolidated teams working in a single location. Furthermore, having a remote team means you are no longer limited to hiring in your own backyard. There are qualified, talented people around the country (and the world) who you can now be considered. Only a decade ago, this would have been inconceivable.

We’re going to review the top 7 things your firm needs to consider as you join the ranks of resilient businesses that have dispersed teams.

#1: BE IN THE CLOUD

In this decade, when dealing with a remote team, cloud computing is your foundation. It’s fundamental. Without this, you really can’t build a sustainable practice that is not reliant on a physical location. Your firm must move to the cloud to survive, regardless of the current pandemic. 

For some of you with dispersed teams, chances are your firm has already moved to the cloud and can provide uninterrupted service to your clients. Those businesses with outdated technologies, on-premises servers, and complex IT infrastructure are scrambling to figure out how their employees can work from home or other remote locations. The time and money you are currently spending to make this happen could have been avoided by adopting current cloud-based technologies and trends. The cloud was designed precisely for the world we now find ourselves forced to live in.

#2: MEASURE PRODUCTIVITY

Regardless of whether you pay your employees hourly or invoice your clients by the hour, tracking time is essential for understanding employee and project profitability. But it’s also great for understanding what your remote team is working on throughout the day. 

We designed BQE Core to make time tracking easy for your remote team. Our timecard is smart enough to be prefilled with the projects and activities that they should be working on. Not only are managers getting the real-time insights they need to manage project deliverables and budgets, but employees are happier with smart timecards.  

When managing remote workers, I suggest implementing and enforcing a policy requiring timecards to be updated three times a day (10am, 2pm, and 5pm).  Not only will you have assurance that your remote team is working, but you will also get real-time project-level performance metrics and far more accurate, granular accounting of work effort, rather than waiting until the end of a week. If one can manage to eat a meal three times a day, they can spend 30 seconds, three times a day, and fill out a smart timecard

#3: FREQUENT COMMUNICATION

For many firms that have recently moved to dispersed teams due to the Coronavirus, there is a sense of loss of a community. In Latin, “com” means “with” or “together”. It’s no coincidence that community and communication both start with “com”. So, when you find yourselves at a loss for “community,” the best alternative is frequent communication. 

There are numerous cloud-based tools available today that help communications of varying types. We use Slack in our company and create distinct channels that employees can follow to keep up with relevant news and information or to share their own ideas. Think of this as chat technology on steroids. Use Slack and keep it running all day. I recommend that you spend some time figuring out what channels you need and keep them limited. Too many channels on Slack are like too many channels on your television: you’ll waste too much time figuring out where to focus.

For even more personal communication, I’m a huge fan of video. Tools like Zoom and GoToMeeting allow you to have that face-to-face interaction. With Zoom, you can host up to 100 participants. As of this writing, GoToMeeting is limited to 26. These are also great tools for screen sharing.

At our company, we replaced our old phone system with a virtual one from Dialpad. Included in their service is Uber Conference, which lets us instantly create a video call and invite anyone on our remote team to join. We can even bring in people who are not related to our company. Another reason I love Dialpad is that it really doesn’t care where I am; I’m always available. I have a Dialpad phone at my office, the Dialpad app on my iPhone, and my laptop and home computer. It will route calls to me on every device. Even while I’m out walking the dog, when I get a call from a colleague, I’m as good as at my desk. (shhh, don’t tell anyone).

#4: SETUP RECURRING MEETINGS

Having the tools I described above is essential for a remote workforce, but properly using them is the key to success. I find that starting each day with a virtual “stand-up” meeting of about 15 minutes works great. We share our priorities for the day and check on what we can do for each other to make sure we all succeed. This meeting must have everyone in attendance, and the organizer should keep it moving so attendees don’t get bogged down in problem-solving. That can happen in a breakout meeting afterward, with only those who need to be involved.

On Fridays, a weekly wrap-up meeting should be held with your team, and the organizer should review what was accomplished during the week and what’s upcoming the following week. 

In addition, managers should arrange a one-on-one video meeting with each team member to clarify priorities and minimize chat and email threads. It’s sad, but we've managed to replace actual conversations with email and chat. There is nothing better than face-to-face (now virtual face-to-face) meetings to get things done.

#5: DOCUMENT AND SPREADSHEET COLLABORATION

If your firm is still emailing documents, STOP. This is just about as useful as faxing them. It’s an entirely abhorrent use of technology, not to mention outdated. There are a number of simple cloud-based document-sharing utilities from Google, Dropbox, and others. I’m a huge fan of Google Docs and Google Sheets, and I can track all the edits and comments made by the team. 

#6: PROJECT MANAGEMENT

Frankly, project management is essential regardless of whether your team is working remotely or in the exact physical location. However, based on item #1 (running your firm in the cloud), having a platform that enables management via cloud computing is where every resilient, flexible business should be in this day and age. We designed BQE Core to work for everyone in the company, regardless of their role, privilege, location, or device. Not only is having a system for managing critical, but making sure you are properly trained so it works the way your business needs, rather than you having to change your workflow to match the product. 

BQE Core was designed for professional service firms and brings together the disparate pieces of information typically scattered across many applications (and spreadsheets). Finally, your firm can handle all the various tasks elegantly within a defined structure.

#7: THE REMOTE WORKFORCE POLICY MANUAL

Just as important as having a well-designed office environment, it’s equally important that your remote workforce have a space that allows them to perform their functions in a manner that is conducive to health and good work product. If an employee is accustomed to having two monitors in the office but is now working from home, you should consider providing them with a second monitor to maintain their performance.

Do they require a dedicated space in their home, and does it have an ergonomic chair, desk, and accessories? Is their personal equipment appropriate for business use? Do they have pets or children that might interfere with the perception of professionalism your firm requires? There are dozens of similar questions like this that must be carefully considered and put into a policy manual. It’s the go-to document when hiring remote workers, so they understand what you will be providing and what is expected. 

There is no one-size-fits-all solution to a firm’s remote worker policy manual. Your stakeholders really need to invest time into a well-thought-out policy that is fair and workable.

CLOSING REMARKS:

Welcome to our brave, new world. Having your team dispersed may seem like a great inconvenience, but it can yield many positive business and personal outcomes. Fortunately, we live in a time when technology has advanced to the point that this is not only possible but effortless. The cloud offers us an interesting new frontier that will broaden our reach.

Now, all we need to do is evolve as homo-sapiens to the point where we are comfortable in this new virtual community.