Ways to be a Good Leader While Running Your Team from Home
Due to the lockdown of non-essential businesses, several companies were forced to let their employees work from home. The good thing is that some businesses managed to survive even with remote operations. It could be a bit challenging though. Not having everyone in the same work environment could place barriers related to communication and dissemination of tasks. If you have to manage the team remotely, these are the ways for you to be effective in doing it.
Be clear in defining work
You need to be as clear and as detailed as possible when assigning tasks. There’s no room for vagueness when you can’t talk to your employees directly. You don’t want to run the risk of getting things wrong because you were unable to express things clearly.
Come up with a common platform
You can choose from different platforms and systems to communicate with your employees and do the tasks. The best option depends on the nature of the activities that you do. Before you begin working remotely, you need to have a session where you explain how the platform works. If you have older employees, they might find it difficult to figure things out on their own. You will waste more time if you failed to explain how the platform works right from the start.
Choose video calls over emails
Zoom calls are becoming the norms in recent months. Employees talk to one another through this platform. It’s easy to setup and navigate. The good thing about video calls is that you can clearly explain what you want to say. If the other parties would like to take notes, it’s up to them. If they have questions, they can also raise them during the meeting. Conversely, when you keep sending emails, they could be confusing. They also take time to finish. When there are clarifications, there will be several email exchanges. If you can find time where everyone can join the meeting, it would be more practical.
Be flexible
When you allow employees to work from home, you also need to understand that not everyone has similar situations. Some people have to spend more time teaching their children. Others have to deal with household chores since they don’t have a helper. As long as the employees can finish the job as scheduled, you should be okay with it. Besides, the lockdown measures weren’t implemented to determine the most productive company out there. It was meant to keep people at home and stay healthy.
Don’t talk about work all the time
Everyone is becoming anxious because of the quarantine orders. You need to make sure that your employees are doing well. Let them know that you care for them. If you have time, you can call them not to talk about work, but to see how they’re doing.
It’s not easy managing a team remotely, but it can be done. Hopefully, things will get back to where they were, and you can do a better job as a team.
Photo Attribution:
1st and featured image from https://ukrainskagazeta.de/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/zoom-pc.jpg
2nd image from https://www.businessnewsdaily.com/8156-future-of-remote-work.html
