Introduction
Culture plays a central role in any organization's progress. Remote teams have many advantages, including increased productivity, employee satisfaction, and decreased stress and turnover. But leaders who want to take advantage of distributed teams often face this challenge: isn't it hard to foster a healthy culture when your employees are far away?
The traditional workplace landscape is shifting, and with it comes new difficulties. For example, fostering a cohesive atmosphere can be difficult when your team is spread nationwide. How can you, as a boss, build a strong culture when your team members are scattered across the country or the world?
Whether you're a seasoned remote boss or this is your first time leading a distributed team, there are some things to remember. We will discuss them in detail here.
Problems Faced By Remote Engineering Teams
Anyone who has attempted to manage a remote team knows the difficulties that arise. However, these obstacles can be overcome with the proper knowledge and approach, resulting in a seamless remote collaboration experience. Some of the common problems faced are as follows:
Keeping Everyone Informed Is Quite Complicated.
Slow and inefficient communication can cause numerous problems in the workplace, creating dependencies that prevent team members from moving forward. Also, everyone on your team should be aware of the project's status, current priorities, and the tasks of their counterparts.
Poor Planning Impedes Project Delivery
If planning is adequate, you have nothing to worry about. However, you must adequately communicate the requirements to your team. Consider all the team members' bandwidth before going forward with the plan.
Team Development
Most CEOs will agree that bringing new team members into the office is an excellent way to become acquainted with the company's culture. Therefore, how do we introduce new team members in a manner that will help them understand the company's culture and bond with their teammates? We have discussed that in the paragraphs below.
Best Strategies To Manage A Remote Team
Keeping these obstacles in mind, we must figure out how to work around them effectively to hold the most effective and fruitful sessions outside of the office.
If we can accomplish this, several benefits will emerge. Below are some strategies you can implement to manage a remote team effectively.
Share Your Purpose And Values, And Stick To Them
If this is your team's first time working from home, you can put your company's values in the employee guide or policy for working from home. Then, employees can go back and look at these values whenever they need help with how to act or do their job.
Video Calls Should Be Encouraged
Video and voice calls/conferences are the most time- and cost-effective options. Therefore, they should be used instead of email and text messages whenever feasible. Check this out to know how to become a software engineer.
With remote work, you don't need a fancy workplace to get the job done professionally; you can do it from the coffee shop down the street. First, however, you need to advise people to pick a location where they feel safe sharing videos.
To have a conversation, it is recommended that you use a headset or earbuds with a microphone. In addition, it is recommended that those participating in video conferences select a quiet, private area free of distractions.
Make Sure People Feel Safe
Recent research shows that many workers don't share their ideas and contributions because they think "saying nothing at all" is better than speaking up. Workers worry that their ideas will be turned down or their managers will punish them.
Psychological safety is the most important thing leaders can do to build an excellent remote culture. Employees can be engaged when there is a mindset of psychological safety. They can try new things and take risks. They can say what they want without worrying about failing or getting in trouble. Compare this kind of society to one in which people are afraid to speak up or share new ideas.
Build An Atmosphere Of Trust
To build a healthy remote culture, it's essential to share high-level decisions with your team (during your one-on-ones and weekly team meetings) and let workers know that you trust them to do their work, even when they're working from home.
If you want to build a culture of trust, pay attention to what your team gets done, not how many hours they work. Lastly, if you notice that someone on your team needs to be doing what they're supposed to, check in with them and see if there's anything you can do to help.
Spend Time With People During Which You Don't Work
Creating places and times for casual talks is another critical step in building a strong culture in a remote area. For example, many companies have different channels on Slack where workers can talk about things like pets, hobbies, etc.
This is important because culture comes from people connecting outside of work. Lastly, organizing events like team lunches, book clubs, and friendly games is an excellent way to get your distributed team to work together better.
Don't Get Too Busy Or Too Tired
When people work from home, it can be hard to tell where "work-life" ends and "personal life" begins. That's why it's essential for you, as a boss, to show people how to balance work and life well. If you need to message your team outside of their work hours, include a note saying they can return when they return the next day.
Break Down Barriers To Conversation
Sharing public information (like a team decision or customer feedback) will help you avoid misunderstandings and communication silos. In addition, it's essential for everyone on your team to have a 360-degree view of the company in order to build a healthy remote culture. This means that every employee should be able to read news and information from other departments.
Set Up Virtual Standups And One-On-One Talks
When your team talks to each other infrequently, it's easier to build an excellent remote culture. So, remote teams need to have regular meetings where they can share information, clear roadblocks, and make decisions: If you are new to the idea of daily standups or one-on-one meetings, you can start with these two meeting templates:
- The outline for a daily stand-up show
- Template for a remote one-on-one meeting
Appreciating your teammates' work is integral to making an influential online culture. As a leader, it's important to praise workers both in public and privately. (such as one-on-one conversations).
The important thing is to keep making changes and getting feedback from your team. In the end, listening to the thoughts and ideas of your team will make you a more approachable and sure-of-yourself boss.
Regular Check-ins
Regular check-ins are an essential part of building team culture. It’s a great way to ensure team members are on the same page and that everyone knows what is expected of them. So schedule regular check-ins with your team, and allow everyone to ask questions or voice any concerns.
Set Clear Expectations
Setting clear expectations is critical to keeping your team engaged and motivated. Make sure to define each team member’s roles and responsibilities clearly. This will help ensure everyone is on the same page and knows what is expected of them.
Celebrate Milestones
Celebrating milestones is a great way to build team culture. Make sure to acknowledge and celebrate when your team reaches critical milestones. This will help foster a sense of accomplishment and pride amongst your remote engineering team.
Recognizing a job well done is essential to building culture for remote engineering teams. Take the time to acknowledge each team member’s achievements and contributions. This will help ensure everyone feels appreciated and valued.
Encourage Open Communication
Encouraging open communication is critical to building a culture for remote engineering teams. Create an environment where everyone feels comfortable voicing their opinions and ideas. This will help ensure everyone is heard and create an environment of mutual respect amongst your team.
Essential Tools For Organizing Meetings For Remote Engineering Teams
Now that we've looked at some ways to build a team, it's time to talk about how to handle remote developers on a remote team.
Schedule
When you work from home, it's even more critical to plan meeting times than when you're in the office. One of the only ways to know that everyone is interested in the project is if everyone shows up to the meeting and pays attention.
To make a good plan, you'll need to think about the schedules of each person on your team as well as those of any clients or outside developers you want to work with. Make a plan for each day, each week, and each month that works with these schedules. A scheduling tool is something to look into here. You can also take up interview calls using Teams and other networking tools. These are the best frontend developer tools.
Organize
As a follow-up to the idea of schedules, we need to do a little more to make sure that our team members stay involved when they're not in the office. To help with this, you'll get everyone on the team to work together as well as possible.
At the very least, you should make sure that everyone is doing their fair share of the work so that parts of the project get done on time, and everyone stays motivated by each other.
Synchronization
Trello and other tools can help your team work together better, but the best thing you can do is talk to each other clearly and often. Right away, you'll also want to make sure that everyone agrees on how often and how to talk.
Set up a group chat on a business site like Slack or Loom and ask people to join. Make this chat a friendly place so that you can keep up the spirit of the team and share any news. At the same time, make it easy for others to talk and give comments so that everyone feels like they are being heard.
Meetings
Web chat is one thing, but the text can only get you so far when it comes to conversation and synchronization. Most of the time, the best way to talk to each other and get feedback is through video talks during meetings.
It's important to know what kind of video it is. Your team members will be much more involved if they can see and be seen by each other. It may not be fair to force team members to turn on their videos, but a friendly suggestion could go a long way.
Meetings are more official than texting, which can be a good thing, but both should be done at the same time. A meeting should only be called if there is an apparent reason for it, like check-in at the beginning or end of the day or important news that needs to be shared. If you have too many meetings for little or no reason, your team will get frustrated because they could be doing other things with that time.
In a team teamwork meeting, people can share ideas, make plans, and talk about how to make the most of their projects. Have someone take notes so that you can remember what was said and act on it right away.
Conclusion
Building a culture for remote engineering teams can be challenging. However, with the right strategies, managers can create an environment of engagement and belonging amongst their distributed team. Regular check-ins, collaboration, clear expectations, recognition, and open communication are all key to creating a culture of engagement for remote engineering teams.
FAQs
How Can I Foster A Sense Of Belonging Amongst My Remote Engineering Team?
Encourage team members to connect professionally and personally. This will help create community and unity amongst your remote engineering team.
How Can I Build Morale Amongst My Remote Engineering Team?
Plan activities or events to help bring the team together. This will help foster a sense of unity and help create a sense of community amongst your remote engineering team.
What Are Some Ways To Provide Recognition For Remote Engineering Teams?
Take the time to acknowledge each team member’s achievements and contributions. This will help ensure everyone feels appreciated and valued. Celebrate milestones and team wins to help foster a sense of accomplishment and pride amongst your remote engineering team.
