Avoid Micromanagement
In a remote working organisation it is imperative that you avoid micromanaging your employees.
Your mistrust of their employees might show itself in the form of micromanagement. This occurs when you are typically not satisfied with your employees’ work and rarely show appreciation, frequently demand your employees to report their progress, have unreasonable expectations regarding employees’ working hours and their results, and generally try to control all aspects of work.
Needless to say, micromanagement increases stress among employees, and over time leads to burnout, stifled creativity, decreased productivity, and even health issues. Micromanagement is a remote work culture that is in fact the recipe for a toxic work environment. The success of a remote work environment depends on empowering employees and giving them autonomy rather than micromanaging them.
Keep in mind that your team members should not be under so much stress that it affects their home life and sleep. There is a connection between good decision-making and proper sleep, so if you want the best from your team, you need to ensure that they are able to leave their work at home and not worry about what awaits them when they ‘clock in the next day.
Talking with RingCentral, Brian Minick, the COO of ZeroBounce explains that “trust is the number one value that we share. I manage remote teams across the U.S. and Europe, and if I didn’t trust everyone, we wouldn’t be able to work together. Luckily, our employees are independent and driven people, so we don’t need to micromanage them. We all work for the same goals and no matter where we are in the world, this always keeps us pushing forward”.
Informality
Being informal with your colleagues on the communication platform you’re using is a must to reduce stress and relieve tension. Platforms such as Microsoft Teams provides discussion channels and instant messaging chat groups. To make the most of modern collaboration platforms like Teams, you should aim for informality in your internal communication channels.
The more casual and relaxed your team chats become (within reason), the more likely everyone will feel comfortable contributing through them. Try to get away from the written email mentality and use the chat to speak as you would in person. In short, emojis and gifs are okay. They’ll add some much-needed humanity to your discussions to help make up for the in-person contact that would occur in the office.
There’s no substitute for face-to-face
Reinforcing text-based interaction with face-to-face interaction is, if possible, a recommended policy, whether that’s providing a budget for regular team outings or a monthly video call for everyone to join that provides updates from across the whole organisation.
Harini Bandara, writing for ThirdSpace, says “we have a twice-yearly gathering for the entire company. We’ll travel to somewhere in the UK and provide accommodation and entertainment. This not only provides an opportunity to do some planning and training sessions in person but also to have some much-needed fun and interaction with people you don’t normally get to see. These interactions are a powerful way to reinforce and grow your workplace culture. Be sure to keep bringing them back to those core values and behaviours you look to develop.”
