Communicating with your remote workforce is necessary to keep your business running, but are you doing it correctly? Many of us are befuddled when asked this question. We can hold the false belief that communication is innate and comes naturally. But does it? As remote team leaders and managers of staff working at home, we must communicate with intention. The purpose of this article is to present tips for effective communication with your virtual team.
3 reasons remote team leaders must be intentional with interactions
Supervisors of remote teams must me intentional when interacting with their colleagues and subordinates. Why? The University of California- Berkeley cited a Microsoft study involving 61,000 found that remote working arrangements introduced conditions were workers felt ‘siloed’ off from the ‘larger’ company mission and efforts. Staff working at home conversed less ‘in real time’ with their colleagues working virtually. And remote workers spent less time informally socializing with their colleagues before and after team meetings.
Whether you are only starting as a manager of a remote team or are a seasoned entrepreneur with years of experience under your belt, collaborating effectively within your organization requires interpersonal skills and emotional intelligence. The skill in connecting with your team members on an individual level is paramount to success. Further, your expertise in conveying your directives succinctly, calmly and in non-accusatory and non-defensive tones will help you stand out as an ‘effective leader.’
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Unlike in face-to-face communication, communicating with the remote team means that a lot of the information can be lost in email or Instant Messaging. Follow these simple tips for effective remote team communication, and you’ll be likely to reap the benefits in the near future.
1. Define the purpose for communicating to your remote team
Each day, every hour and minute, we listen, exchange ideas and information, and pose questions for more details and clarification. When we think about it, each time we interact with our colleagues we may have these five underlying purposes in mind:
- to share information and to give feedback,
- to build relationships and deepen bonds,
- to express emotions, feelings and thoughts,
- to influence and call to action, and
- to brainstorm, imagine, and create.
We suggest, prior to meeting with your team to exchange information, reflect upon your message. What is your aim? To influence? To garner support? To clarify? To express an emotion? To education and inform? Or, to brainstorm? Not all modes of communication are suitable for each purpose. Be purposeful about your aim, and select the mode with decisiveness.
2. Determine which of the major modes of communication are best suited for your message given virtually
PressBooks gives these as major modes of giving and receiving information which are related to human sensory perceptions:
- linguistic (written and spoken, bullets, sentence length, choice of words)
- visual (vision, colors, imagery)
- aural (hearing, sound, speed, volume)
- gestural (non verbal cueing, facial expressions)
- spatial (physical positioning, arrangement)
The Holy Grail of online interactions is the ability to communicate quickly, concisely, and effectively. This means that you should try to clearly convey your point within a few sentences if communicating in writing. If it takes longer than that, you should start a video chat instead, to be able to convey your ideas properly. After all, spending half an hour typing a message is less effective than a 10-minute video call with the entire team.
Another example relates to employee performance reviews. If a remote team manager needs to discuss poor performance, it would be prudent to express information using lower tones, slower voice cadence and refrain from excited nonverbal gestures. If a virtual team lead wants to influence team members with a call to action, they would convey the details in a happy, excited and energetic tone accompanied by colorful visuals and fast-paced music humming in the background.
3. Step up your software game effective for disseminating information to your staff working from home
Re-creating the in-office experience when working remotely is possible if you invest in the correct type of collaborative software and communication technology. Whether you choose to use a combination of Zoom for video calls and Slack for messages, it’s important to find the combo that works best for your team.
Don’t be afraid to experiment with multiple software until you find the right one for your specific needs. Besides software used for communication, you should also consider collaborative software, such as Google Docs, for example, that allows multiple team members to work together on the same document at the same time.
Working collaboratively is one of the best ways to communicate effectively when working remotely because it mimics the office experience. You can also share ideas in real time as you work on a document, which is priceless when it comes to flowing ideas.
4. Brush up your communication skills and emotional intelligence as they are critical to remote manager success
Having the right communication channels only works if you make an effort to improve your communication skills as well. Whether you have experience managing traditional teams or not, online interactions are different, and you should adapt your communication skills to suit them.
Why is the ability to interact and connect with remote staff vital to remote team management success? Psychologists and the University of Hohenheim- Germany asked remote managers to maintain a daily journal of work-related activities. The researchers uncovered information helpful for remote team leads and supervisors.
Meeting corporate goals and objectives were in the forefront as main messages to express to their team. However, remote team managers and virtual team leaders’ secondary aim was to hit relational target. Building relationships through effective communication is predicated upon the possession of high emotional intelligence. Relation building actions involved:
- creating space and time for informal socializing and teambuilding
- giving emotional space and approval for displaying empathy
- regularly checking on the emotional state of subordinates
- making the virtual team feel supported
- empowering telecommuting team members to give feedback
5. Remote managers should refrain from over-communicating
Yes, you heard it right. Research shows, remote managers and virtual supervisors are encouraged not to over-communicate. Overcommunicating and being overly controlling with information are no, nos.
In an effort to always be available and motivate your team, you may fall into the trap of overcommunication. There’s absolutely no need to bombard your team with messages. If you’re the kind of person that follows up on a task by email and phone, you should stop, because even though your intentions are good, that’s not effective communication.
Many remote workers may feel uncomfortable if you are abusing the access points, so it’s important to choose your communication strategy and stick to it. Refrain yourself from sending multiple emails regarding the same issue if you haven’t yet gotten a reply. Some companies have established digital communication rules, which means that some messages may be marked as “No Need to Reply,” which reduces the number of messages that go back and forth, thus saving time for both parties.
You should, as much as is humanly and sanely possible (within respectful work-life boundaries) make yourself available for communication at all times. Nobody wants to be ignored no matter what kind of working environment we’re talking about, but in the world of remote working, it’s imperative that you answer all questions members of the team might have as quickly as possible.
6. Effective and efficient remote managers plan ahead to achieve goals
As the manager of a remote team, it’s important to communicate with outcomes in mind. So don’t forget to review #1 Tip which is to define the purpose of your message and #2 is to consider the mode and/or channel you will use. After you’ve figured out at 10,000 feet and in broad strokes, now you can make a quick draft of everything you want to cover during video calls. This way, you can update your team quickly and concisely, while also anticipating some of the questions they might have for you.
Additionally remote video conferencing requires pre-planning team expectations, virtual meeting guidelines, individual staff roles and responsibilities. Establishing these guardrails beforehand contributes to effective remote team management and remote leadership.
When writing emails for your team, adopt the same strategy (See items #1 and item#2), by planning your email first and anticipate a couple of the most obvious questions your team members might have. This way, you won’t have to respond to multiple emails on the same matter and focus your attention elsewhere.
7. Use pictures, videos, animations and sounds to engage your remote team
Whether you are communicating with your team via email or a video call, is important to make the content you want to share easy to skim. And because nobody likes reading a wall of text, include pictures and visuals in all your text documents so you can easily catch the reader’s attention and demonstrate your point better.
As stated before, in item #2 when you seek to keep every remote team member engaged, active and involved during remote team meetings, it is advisable to use a multi-modal approach where many of the senses are activated.
You can employ the same strategy for video calls by sharing your screen with the team and showing them exactly what you mean instead of spending time describing things in your own words.
8. Remote team leads set clear expectations and deadlines
Tele-commuting may lead to procrastination, and even the best and motivated workers get lured into it. To avoid having to pester your remote workers for deliverables, you need to set clear deadlines, outline your expectations, and check in frequently to make sure they are met. By setting these expectations clearly, you can help all members of your team remain accountable.
You should also outline your expectations regarding office hours. All team members should know when you are available to answer questions and when they are expected to be present online. Lead by example and encourage your team not to answer messages out of the office hours for a better work-life balance.
The research bears these tips out. Geister offers evidence that virtual teams tend to benefit from a more active feedback culture than their in office counterparts because of the broad usage of remote team tools and apps. (2006) These tools have built-in systems for creating, visualizing and tracking expectations. This gives greater transparency where support on individual and team levels can be provided when progress doesn’t meet expectations. In a physical in office environment, employees may not be able to visualize and track in real time the progress of a team member task or the status of a group project.
By having clear guidelines on communication, you can manage a remote team effectively and keep everyone happy and accountable at the same time.
Don’t forget that it’s not always about work. You should incorporate communication about personal topics from time to time to encourage team members to get to know each other and become a cohesive workforce. Working remotely is often a rewarding experience for both managers and the team. By following these tips to communicate effectively, you can make sure that the entire team is on the right path to reaching the common goals.