Speaker 1: Today's HWA topic is on 12 best practices for effectively managing remote teams. Remote team management can come with a few challenges as well. Here are 12 best practices which explains to you how to manage remote teams effectively in your business. Number one, find the right workflow management system for your team. To maximize the team output, you need to find out the right workflow management system for your team. Choosing the best ways can help you have more productivity. Benefits of having a right workflow include, you can easily avoid the trap of micromanagement, you allow your team to control the work on each level, and your team can easily accomplish specific goals. Bonus tip, instead of focusing on how the work is being done, focus on the work itself and set clear objectives for each remote employee. Number two, create a workplace culture for your remote teams. While managing remote teams, it is important to have a clear vision of team culture. Culture is about human beings and people want to feel part of something positive and bigger than themselves. Remote team managers who are able to create this sense of culture will increase the quality, productivity, and commitment of their remote team members and their work. True workplace culture will drive successful remote teams. Bonus tip, recognize their hard work and give them rewards for their efforts. Number three, try a different communication medium. To manage your virtual teams, you need to apply different communication methods. Here are some mediums which works for communication purposes, email, video chat, phone, and web chat. As a bonus tip, make sure every remote team communication is delivered on the right platform. Number four, have a culture of accountability and trust. It is important to have a culture of accountability. In order to bring strong working relationships with your team members is to create social bonding. Setting clear expectations for remote workers is also a key. Bonus tip, establish trust in between your remote workers. It will improve the confidence level and trust. Number five, effective collaboration on documents. In remote team management, there are numbers of documents shared by employees with each other. In this scenario, Google Drive has made life for the virtual assistants easier than ever. If you have a document which needs editing with the help of various people at a time, you can get it edited all at once once you share the document in the Google Drive or Dropbox. As a bonus tip, use Google Drive for seamless work on files without having to download and re-upload them. Number six, allow a degree of flexible working hours. These days, working from home has been given priority in the life of the people to get the flexibility with their working hours. It is an important aspect to include flexibility in working hours to manage remote teams. One requires to get collaborated is not necessary. Being available through virtual tools can also help the team to stay connected and at the same time, they can chat and resolve any sorts of upcoming issues. Bonus tip, make their working hours flexible so it will create an opportunity to create a structure of overbooking and micromanaging. Number seven, track their performance. It is very important to implement a structure of tracking the performance of remote employees whether your team is virtual or not. Provide them flexibility but don't completely leave them on their own. If they are getting paid based on working hours, then track their attendance by using tracking software. Bonus tip, you can use the sales handy tool to streamline your communication with your remote team members. It will create transparency in the work environment and you will know quickly whether team members are productive or not. Number eight, take regular feedback. Collecting regular feedback is one of the most important parts of remote management strategies. It also allows you to encourage hard work, put transparency in your work also, and create good opportunities to explore new ways to keep in touch with your remote team. As a bonus tip, create 360 degree feedback so that remote employees can motivate him or herself for doing better. Number nine, keep communication simple and natural. It's very important to maintain a communication through email services, product wiki, task boards, and instant messaging apps. By using virtual assistance tools, you can keep the communication simple and natural. It is the best way to minimize setup overhead. Bonus tip, use the right tool for your communication and create a simplified workflow. Number 10, take out time for small conversation. To work in a highly moderated management system, the remote employees need to get indulged in the small conversations. If there is a deadline to maintain or have a quick meeting to attain, all things require a small talk that can help in clearing the doubts and help in fast indulge for the execution of the tasks. Bonus tip, small conversations with your team members demonstrate that you care and this will also make them like working for you more. Number 11, get together face to face at least once a year. At least once in a year, you can bring all your teams together for a virtual conference. This type of gathering helps in increasing the possibilities of discussing business at a substantial stage. With warm get togethers and team building activities directly impacting productivity, team morale, and overall team performance. No matter whether your team is big or small, it is important to focus on team building activities and create a sense of connectedness across the company. Bonus tip, small gatherings with your team members will give an opportunity to have a big discussion around culture, vision, and team future. Number 12, respect cultural differences. No matter whether we are managing small or big remote teams, managing cultural diversity in the team can be challenging sometimes. Dealing with cultural differences and language barriers in remote team members are some of the issues that today's managers and leaders face. So it is important to successfully navigate the cultural diversity in the workplace. Bonus tip, educate your team members about the cultural ethics, language, and religious holidays. This will help to solve the problems and keep cultural misunderstandings at the minimum level. Final thoughts, the explosion of technological advancements has redefined every aspect of our lives, especially the way we work. Having and managing remote employees is now a mundane aspect of today's workplace. So if you are a leader, then you need to follow the above mentioned best practices of managing the remote teams to create a truly united team. If you have any questions, contact us online and subscribe to our YouTube channel.