The number of remote workers worldwide has steadily increased in recent years, and companies have embraced this shift because of the numerous benefits it offers both employers and employees.
However, managing a remote team comes with its own set of challenges. Without proper strategies in place, businesses may struggle with communication barriers, employee engagement, maintaining a strong company culture, and more.
So in this guide, we’ll explore some tips and best practices for effectively managing remote teams. But first, let's take a look at the benefits of global remote teams, as well as some of the difficulties of managing them.
Benefits of Global Remote Teams
We've already touched on some of the upsides of remote work, but there are many more benefits to hiring a team of international remote workers.
- You can hire the best talent from across the globe since you're no longer limited by borders.
- It's appealing to employees who want a flexible work schedule and a job that allows them to work from anywhere.
- It increases productivity.
- It saves money — up to USD $10,600 per employee, according to one study.
- It lowers employees’ stress-related symptoms and lessens the number of sick days they take.
Challenges of Managing Global Remote Teams
Clearly, there's a lot to love about working with an international team of remote employees, but working outside a traditional office environment has its challenges as well, including the following:
- Communication barriers: Managing a dispersed team comes with a wealth of potential issues, such as scheduling meetings across various time zones and the misunderstandings due to asynchronous communication or cultural differences.
- Work-life balance: When work is done from home, it's easy for lines to blur between work life and home life, which can negatively impact employee engagement and contribute to burnout.
- Data security: The risk of data breaches and unauthorized access increases when workers are distributed across the globe, especially if they use personal devices or unsecured networks.
- Compliance across countries: Labor and tax laws vary from country to country, and local regulations change as new legislation is passed.
- Payroll and benefits: Handling multi-country payroll and benefits — with nations' varying laws, taxes, and benefits — can be complex
10 Tips to Help You Manage Remote Global Teams
Now that you understand what you're up against, let's dive into some effective strategies that'll make managing an internationally dispersed team a breeze.
1. Develop a Structured Onboarding Process.
A thoughtful, well-planned onboarding process helps new hires feel welcome and sets them up for success.
Here are a few things to consider doing:
- Provide clear documentation outlining what employees need to do, whether that's to fill out certain forms or complete an online course.
- Give them access to the company knowledge base, product help documentation, and any other useful data.
- Consider using "living" documents (those that you update regularly with the latest information) so that every documented procedure is constantly updated based on the evolving needs of your business. Allow employees to contribute impactful ideas to these documents to improve the process.
- Assign mentors or onboarding buddies to assist new hires with any questions.
- Schedule regular check-ins to ensure new employees are integrating smoothly into the team.
2. Set Clear Expectations.
Establish transparent guidelines regarding work hours, communication protocols, workflows deadlines, and performance metrics.
Clear expectations help prevent misunderstandings and ensure all team members are aligned with organizational goals.
3. Provide the Right Tools.
Equipping your team with a useful tech stack is essential for seamless communication and productivity. Here are some to consider:
- Slack or Microsoft Teams for messaging
- Loom for recording videos
- Asana, Confluence, or Trello for project management
- Zoom for video calls
- Google Drive for document collaboration
Check out some more of our favorite tools for remote teams.
4. Establish Asynchronous Communication Guidelines.
Depending on where your employees are located, it may be impossible to get everyone at the same meeting, so it's important to have clear communication processes in place.
This may involve instructing employees to keep all communications in the proper Slack channels or encouraging them to record videos when explaining complicated tasks.
Here are some other tips to ensure seamless and effective communication:
- Prioritize video calls to promote face-to-face interactions in addition to the traditional email and messenger apps.
- Establish clear timeframes for tasks like answering emails (i.e. 24 hours for internal emails).
- Provide employees with communication best practices, such as specifying when a 24-hour deadline begins and avoiding vague terms like "soon" and "quickly."
- Emphasize the importance of over-communication to ensure that people understand tasks and can achieve desired outcomes.
- Encourage employees to ask questions and speak to their managers if a communication process isn't working for them.
5. Be Mindful of Varying Time Zones.
Occasionally, you may need to have a company-wide call, so it's important to schedule meetings at convenient times for everyone if possible.
You can use a tool like World Time Buddy to find overlap in availability, and rotate meeting times when possible to accommodate different time zones fairly.
Check out these other tips to work effectively across time zones.
6. Focus on Output.
Micromanaging employees' workloads and insisting they account for every minute of the day shows distrust in your team.
Instead of focusing on hours worked, emphasize outcomes and performance metrics, and set clear goals and key performance indicators to measure success.
A results-oriented approach like this allows team members to work at the times they’re most productive times while still maintaining accountability.
7. Encourage Work-Life Balance.
Remote work can blur the line between personal and professional life, especially when you have globally dispersed employees who may occasionally have meetings outside of normal working hours.
Encourage employees to define their own specific work hours, take regular breaks, and set boundaries between work and personal time to avoid burnout.
8. Organize Virtual Team-Building Activities.
Building a cohesive team culture remotely and keeping employee engagement high can be tough.
One way to combat this is to engage in virtual team-building exercises to strengthen relationships, enhance collaboration, and reduce feelings of isolation among team members.
These activities could take the form of online games, icebreakers, virtual escape rooms, trivia, lunch-and-learns, wellness sessions, and more. Check out some other great ideas for employee engagement.
9. Make Time for Informal Learning.
"We've found that one of the biggest things that can be lost when working remotely are those 'water cooler moments' where team members chat about what they're working on," says Paul Sharpe, CEO of Easy Business App, a remote company based in Australia.
"The amount of learning that happens in those unscheduled moments can be huge and it really helps bring team members feel more connected. We encourage people to 'drop in' to other Slack channels, and we always allow space at the start and end for meetings to go ‘off topic.’ As well as the personal bonding this encourages, there's a surprising amount of interteam chat that provides fresh perspectives and new ideas for solving work problems.
10. Recognize and Reward Employee Contributions.
Remote employees can sometimes feel disconnected from co-workers and company culture or like they’re working in a silo.
You can help people feel more connected and motivated by regularly recognizing accomplishments through shout-outs in company channels, tagged posts on LinkedIn, or more formal employee recognition programs.
Manage Remote Teams Like a Pro
Implementing these management tips and best practices will help you create a thriving global remote work environment where employees are both satisfied and productive.
However, as discussed above, managing remote teams across multiple countries comes with a unique set of challenges, such as compliance, payroll, and labor laws — just to name a few. This is where working with an Employer of Record (EOR) like RemoFirst can be invaluable.
Partnering with RemoFirst — an EOR that enables companies to employ workers in 185+ countries — allows you to focus on effectively managing your remote team while we handle the legal and administrative tasks.
Book a demo to learn more.
.png)
.png)
