Whether you own a business or head a department, you are likely managing your team. As such, it only makes sense that you look for ways to boost their performance.
It is the same when you are managing a remote team. It might even be more challenging since you are separated by time and location. If not taken care of, this can lead to a decrease in productivity and effectiveness.
It is like sending the wrong output despite being long overdue.
The secret to having a productive and efficient remote marketing team is to reduce work barriers. An example would be working at the same time for a couple of hours, regardless of timezone. The rationale here is to reduce waiting time and ensure that everyone can receive a prompt response.
Here are 18 more ways to boost your remote team’s efficiency and effectiveness:
Set Realistic Goals and Expectations
You can position your team for success when you detail the scope of work, work breakdown structure, as well as deliverables.
Working with a remote marketing team can sometimes be challenging. There will be no side conversations, or someone is yelling on cubicle walls.
Everyone in your team should understand the goals and deliverables you’re trying to achieve, specific roles, and any due date.
You can also use helpful project management tools like Trello, Asana, Monday.com, and Basecamp. Just keep in mind that when evaluating these tools, you should be placing a significant emphasis on how you can automate your workflow.
Establish Daily Check Ins
Here’s the thing: Managers can personally check in with their teams. Simultaneously, employees couldn’t do the usual water cooler chats. Hence, it is advisable to establish regular check in.
These check ins can either be one-on-one or done in small groups. It is also an excellent way to set priorities and maintain connections with your remote team.
The tools we’ve mentioned can also be crucial in revamping those regular check ins. You may want to make use of the video conferencing app to hold a weekly virtual meeting.
That way, you can check how everyone is progressing with their tasks without disrupting their routine.
Keep Your Desk Clean
How can you achieve your goals if your environment is cluttered?
At CleaningExec Maid Service NYC, we always tell our clients to ensure that the desk areas are kept clean and tidy so that it is so much easier to navigate.
In fact, there’s also plenty of research that backs up the fact that a clean desk and uncluttered environment allow one to concentrate better. This makes it easier to solve all those daunting tasks.
Create a To-Do List
Without managers who are constantly breathing everyone’s necks, it can sometimes be challenging to keep track of your daily task.
To make sure that you stay productive, you need to develop a to-do list and then start ticking off all the tasks you and your team completed. If you’ve over-estimated things on your list, you can always put off other items to be done the next day.
Having a to-do list allows one to prioritize tasks and avoid any unnecessary tasks or activities.
Invest in the Right Remote Marketing Team Tools
Because you’re working remotely, there’s no need to invest in offices, meeting rooms, or kitchens. Still, it’s vital to invest in the right tools that allow your team to function effectively.
Ideally, your team needs to have a communications system that’s secure, a task accountability tool, as well as a content calendar.
You don’t invest in too many tools, though, since you need to make your working environment streamlined.
It would help if you didn’t use tools for the task of using them. It would help if you also were searching for whatever system integrates well with how your team works.
Encourage Teamwork and Collaboration
Teamwork is essential, whether you are managing an in-house or remote team. Fostering that culture of collaboration can boost productivity. This can result in better employee engagement and a sense of community with one another.
It’s also vital that you build an atmosphere wherein team members can freely share their ideas and support each other.
Every member should feel that what they contribute is valuable.
Moreover, every team should have a leader that takes charge, assumes responsibility, and ensures that projects are managed well.
Use Productivity Apps
If you find it challenging to focus on working at home, then productivity apps are your friend.
With many trusted tools available on the market, you can quickly get the rewards of these time-management trackers and project management tools. One of which is to ensure maximum productivity.
Give Incentives and Rewards
Giving your team incentives and rewards motivates them to work hard to get added benefits when they complete the tasks.
Here are some of the most typical incentives that can motivate their productivity at work:
- Cash bonuses
- More vacation time
- Promotions
- Raises
- Gift cards
It’s up to the company to choose the best incentives for their employees because every culture is different. There will be certain kinds of rewards that work a lot better compared with others.
Prioritize the Team’s Well-Being
To encourage your team to stay inspired with their work, you need to emphasize their overall health and well-being.
Reminders to breathe, be mindful, and focus allows them to shift their perspective, encourage a sense of calm, and enhance creativity.
Also, being stuck in the same four walls all day is enough to drive anyone crazy.
That’s why everyone should be encouraged to step out of their house every once in a while. It may be a short walk in the morning or grabbing something to eat at lunch.
Apart from giving wellness days or additional time off if needed, you can also encourage meditative kick-off. Before everyone starts their day, allow them to spend 5 – 15 minutes of quiet meditation.
Keep a Clear Line of Communication
When working remotely, some of your colleagues will assume that you’ll slack off and watch YouTube videos instead of working.
If you want to put aside any of these concerns, it’s essential to maintain a clear line of communication with them. This ensures that everyone is updated with the progress of specific projects.
Use Your Teams’ Strengths
Every person in the team has their own set of experiences, strengths, and weaknesses that make them valued members.
For instance, one person in your team may be good at researching, while the other might not by knowing who excels in who in a particular skill is essential.
Ideally, they should spend more time on the work they enjoy since it helps streamline tasks and projects. Also, if a person is excited to work on particular tasks, they’ll likely have higher-quality output, and they’re able to do the job much faster.
So, everyone in the team should be given work that they find rewarding or challenging. Doing so allows everyone in the group to provide the best outputs.
Eliminate Distractions
Distractions tend to hinder a team’s performance and productivity.
So when you eliminate these distractions, members can enhance their concentration to focus better on their tasks.
Have Dedicated Workspaces
When working from home, it’s highly encouraged to have a dedicated working space separate from the communal area.
In some cases, companies offer more significant stipends. This is to provide their employees with a more appropriate and productive space to work.
Moreover, having dedicated workspaces often frees employees from distractions at home.
Often, a space wherein they can do their work, away from their home life, lets them maintain focus and do their tasks more effectively.
Even if this home office is just some make-shift space, one can separate work from home life.
Offer Support
Working from home can often lead to feeling isolated and other negative emotions. That’s why managers and employers should try their best to provide employees with emotional support.
Ideally, managers should set the tone, creating a calm and upbeat vibe. This creates a more positive and productive atmosphere where people can quickly get things done.
Also, with this kind of setup, managers should be more available than usual for the check ins and questions that might arise. Creating virtual office hours and maintaining a constant presence on messaging apps makes sense to help workers.
Moreover, self-care should also be encouraged, especially for those transitioning to remote work. That’s because of these new environments and the stress that comes with this pandemic.
It would be best that employees get enough sleep, take showers, do regular exercise, and go on with their lives like usual.
Do Non-work Interactions and Team Building
This might not be as obvious, but it’s also crucial that remote employees are encouraged to have non-work interactions.
Creating that time and space for employees to talk about anything in the sun often relieves stress and lets them stay better connected. You can do this a few minutes before or after a video conference.
Catch up with your employees by asking how they are doing or what’s new in their house.
Another excellent example is to hold a virtual happy hour. Nowadays, you can do group activities with your remote marketing team. This includes a virtual escape room and online watch parties.
Doing so allows you to have fun with one another, even though you do not get to see each other personally.
Track Progress
It is vital to have a baseline when tracking and evaluating your remote team’s progress.
You can start by measuring the amount of output they produce for at least two weeks. From there, you can determine what you need to do and implement to boost their progress. And then monitor and re-evaluate their performance.
Evaluating a company’s performance lets you know if remote workers are also successfully managed.
- Evaluate company goals and achievements
- Evaluate key performance indicators
- Evaluate search engine optimization rankings
- Review feedback from customers
- Know the rate of repeat purchases
- Compare progress with competitors
- Know your strengths and weaknesses
- Work on improvement strategies
Managers should ensure that there’s no lapse in measuring performance. Otherwise, your remote marketing team won’t be able to work like a well-oiled machine.
The performance of your remote employees also affects the growth of your business. Make sure that you identify these critical issues and make the necessary corrections if needed.
Offer Rewards
After you’ve reached a particular milestone, you need to look for ways to celebrate, and if possible, reward these successes.
Whether big or small, celebrating success is an excellent way to encourage remote workers to do better. Not to mention, it helps them do their best.
There are several ways to celebrate your company’s success with your team to get more productive results. Here are some suggestions:
- Hosting virtual parties
- Offering rewards to team members
- Giving gifts
- Offering work vacations to employees
It also helps that you don’t hold off these celebrations up until you think you’ve reached bigger, long-term goals. If your employees are striving to be better, yet you don’t acknowledge or celebrate their efforts, they will be discouraged in the long run.
Offer Autonomy
A lot of managers thrive well in an office environment because they can physically be around people.
If there’s a problem that might arise, they need to gather their team, discuss it, and work towards solutions.
However, often, in a remote team, these dynamics usually don’t work out.
Although some managers might be tempted to send a message on Slack, you should give your team greater autonomy by asking how work is going.
Not only are they taking up time constantly giving updates, but this switch can also impact their focus on the task at hand.
Over to You
Remote work does come with many challenges, especially if you are used to “in office” roles. However, managing a remote marketing team shouldn’t be as difficult as it looks like.
You can start by using the appropriate tools and apps. And then always take the time to check in with your team, and see how you can improve your processes.
Doing so can ensure that you have an efficient and productive remote work team.
Author Bio:
Andrew is a writer living in New York City with his two rescue dogs, Jet and Rocket. He usually writes about DIY home projects, cleaning, and organization.