Advice on running a business from home: Managing remote teams 💻

Knowing how to keep people connected is important when running a business from home – share communication guidelines as part of your remote team’s practices.

This should begin as soon as the employee is hired to ensure that the onboarding process is not an afterthought.

Some best practices for communication includes getting a good idea of:

• The method which is preferred by all your team members to communicate.
• What time is best for your team members to communicate; is it preferable to have a morning meeting or an afternoon meeting? Are some of your team members in different time zones?
• Time management is vital when running a business from home; make sure your expected email turnaround time is clear!
• If your company does ‘heads-down’ days, then ensure the rules and requirements are explained universally.
• If you are recruiting from home as well, then it might be worth checking out our video interview tips.
• If certain employees work different hours, for example working remotely half the time, then it might be worth organising a bespoke working from home plan with them.

The most important thing to remember when managing remote teams is to ensure that your employees have a clear understanding of your business, their role and impact, and the goals for which they are working towards.

This sort of clarity is very easy to assume, and even easier to miscommunicate when working virtually.

You can use our 3 top tips for communicating clearly with remote workers:

• Do a video guide to explain certain processes. Sharing screens can also be a valuable way to explain clearly and accurately, particularly if you are wondering how to onboard remote employees.
• Write it down. It can be overwhelming to learn a lot of new information at once, and it can be worthwhile creating a handover guide/how-to guides to give to new employees. This way they will be able to go back and check things without needing to ask for help.
• Catch up with them at a later date. Organise a catch-up to check in on how taska and projects are going – it is your responsibility to make it clear that communication can be open and transparent!

In order to keep staff engaged in their job while working from home, continue to offer opportunities for professional and personal development.

Ask them if there are certain areas of the business they would like to explore or learn more about.

Continuing to invest in training for remote working staff is as important as the steps for those you take in the office. Take a look at our virtual training tips for businesses for more advice on this.

Having breaks at work is important for any company – down time clears the brain and encourages productivity.

If you are wondering how to engage remote employees, then involving a virtual tea break into the daily routine is a good way to do so.

If you usually take a tea break mid afternoon – then you could suggest logging on for a call to catch up with your colleagues socially.

This sort of stuff can be difficult to do naturally online, however, and shouldn’t be forced. Equally, encourage people taking quick break to re-engage themselves. A big part of managing remote workers is trusting their routine!

One-to-ones are a great way to motivate remote employees and give them the opportunity to ask questions, share their ideas, and give feedback.

When you have a one-to-one, try and make them comfortable to share openly and honestly how they’re getting on.

One of the benefits of running a business from home is that you can both manage your own environment, and hopefully feel more comfortable in these sort of meetings. It also means you are able to schedule time to speak individually with people without any distractions that you would encounter in an office environment.

Motivating distributed teams can be done by social activities online. This could involve: making a quiz, playing bingo, having fancy dress or funky shirt Fridays, or a weekly team competition.

This can be a good bit of fun that keeps your team communicating positively with each other while everyone works remotely.

But, every team is different, and often this sort of virtual fun doesn’t land. If people are up for it, you can alternatively suggest an in-person meet-up.

To effectively run a business from home, you will need to plan in detail. It is a good idea to create a timeline and calendar that’s accessible to the team you are managing.

This way, your remote employees can share and work towards deadlines with each other easily.

Make sure that you clearly share your companies values and goals.

In an office environment, the natural dynamic and company culture can be very transparent, but online there needs to be more of an effort from the manager to share this.

This should come across in your team and company meetings, but can also be reiterated in presentations and materials that you share with your team.

• Transition back into the workplace: Sagal Group are passionate about creating commercial spaces that engage and inspire. They have written a fantastic whitepaper on preparing for a transition from remote working, back into the office. Download their Working Solutions for Office and WFH Teams.

• Remote working tools: Virtually managing teams means that your company will be heavily reliant on technology. Having remote IT support for small businesses or remote teams will be good as a backup in case you encounter technical issues.

• A clear programme: It is important to have some online tools to help your team share updates and plans for the business. Ensure that there is somewhere to schedule holidays, plans, recruitment, goals, roles, and responsibilities. This will help everyone keep in contact and plan together.

• Understand differences in your team: When working remotely, everyone will have preferences, commitments, and even cultural differences. It is worth speaking to everyone and seeing if they have a different time zone, accessibility requirements, or particular commitments (like taking children to school or looking after an elderly relative).

• Make it accessible: Remember that your remote employees need to be treated and given the same access as in-office employees. It may be necessary to check on remote workers more often, as they will not pick up bits of advice and resources that are overheard in the office.