How To Manage A Remote Team?

This article was first published at e-resident.me blog.

Remote work is a concept familiar to everyone now. It was a thing long time ago, but in 2020 in became a necessity.

And if you can already work remotely from your home, should you really work only for one big corporation?

Yup, the next thing on your mind is starting a freelancing career and provide services that you know how to do. This is a different level of freedom and possibilities that are opening up now.

To make things tax-efficient and legitimate, you’ll form an LLC. And if you’re really clever, you’ll form your LLC in Estonia (consult with an advisor as it’s always circumstantial). This is what e-residency is made for.

You’ll do well, your business grows, and you need to hire people who can help you. As you’re a free spirit who likes to travel and work from home, you’re going to hire someone remotely.

In one year, you end up hiring five remote workers.

This is the time you need to become more structured on how you manage your employees. You need communication tools and to-do lists.

Weekly Habits

There has to be predictability and habits that you implement. For example, weekly sync to bring everybody up to date with developments within the company. Every week, at the same time. Why? Because the remote team needs to understand that they are part of the team, and this team is moving together to a mutual goal.

And this weekly sync has to be structured as well. You have to have an agenda — whether it’s going through what each of the team members has been up in the previous week, updating everybody with the sales numbers, product updates, etc. Whatever is applicable to your business.

You can also set up one on one calls with team members at the beginning of the week to go through the things that need to be achieved for the week. Or it’s a reflection meeting on Friday. And this also has to be a habit that is taking place each week.

Not everybody is as good at structuring their work as you are. Not everyone has the discipline to do so. And if you don’t have these conversations, they lose connection. You have to keep that fire burning for them. And they have to see that you’re there, every week, doing what’s needed.

This is probably the most important point of this article. Frequent communication with clear structure is the key.

Tools To use

There are a million options out there. Essentially, it’s whatever works for you. Here are some well-known options to consider.

Slack for communication. Slack has become a major tool for businesses to manage communication and for a reason. It’s so intuitive to use, you can create different channels for different teams and topics, and you can integrate Slack with many other well-known apps. You can also use it for free. It’s a no-brainer.

Asana, Trello, and Ora.pm. Asana and Trello are both well-known to-do apps. I have used both, and I think they’re both easy to use and I have no problem recommending them. However, for some reason, Ora was the one that sticks with me. I’ve been using Ora mostly for my personal weekly plans and to-do lists, but you can also manage team assignments there. That said, all of them work well, and there are many alternatives on the market. But you do need a to-do app to track and measure the progress of your team.

Video Calls — Zoom or Google or Teams or Skype? I’ve used Skype, Zoom and Google Meetings a lot. You will likely use the one that you’ve used most, because we’re reluctant to change things that work, and they all work. I was a big Zoom proponent before, but as we have a remote team with BankApply and we’re always doing meetings on Google, it’s become my go-to tool for video calls. It doesn’t hurt that everybody is using Google Calendars and when you send out an invite for a meeting, you can automatically add Google Meetings link.

Conclusion

Running a remote team is the same as running any team. You have to show that you’re there, doing the work. Leading by an example is the ONLY way of leading. You have to communicate what needs to be done, what is important, and why it’s important. These are the same qualities that are needed regardless of the setup of the company.

Ready to start your business with a remote team? Get in touch with us at estonia@comistar.com and join Zero To Scale.