8 ways you can motivate a remote team
Here’s an article extracted from the Supercharge Your Business report by What Franchise
As teams work from home more, keeping motivation and productivity high should be at the forefront of every manager’s to-do list
The outbreak of coronavirus and subsequent lockdown meant that the business world needed to adapt to working from home quickly. It’s something that I have always allowed my team to do, though, because there are a some real benefits that come along with working from home.
Mutually beneficial
Working from home conveys a mutual trust, which pays back in spades; teams often work harder and go the extra mile when given the opportunity to do so. It also allows a better work-life balance, because individuals can organise their work schedule around other commitments, such as parenting.
Working from home can be a very useful tool for focusing, because it removes other distractions and allows you to zone-in on the task at hand. Then there are also the environmental and financial benefits of not commuting to an office every day.
Unforeseen challenges
That being said, if remote working is handled incorrectly, there are certainly some difficulties that can emerge. Isolation can set in, and there’s a risk of teams splitting and becoming a group of individuals rather than a cohesive team.
It can also exacerbate problems that emerged within the office and are then left unchecked. For example, if a manager doesn’t trust their team to work effectively from home, then they’ll create imaginary scenarios where teams avoid checking-in and completing the tasks at hand.
Because of these challenges, it’s important to know what you can do as a manager to make the most of the situation and most importantly motivate your team.
1) Watercooler talk
In an office environment, it’s easy to check-in with your team and see how they’re doing each day. In fact, you can often tell this just from how they walk into the office, or the first few words they say in the morning.
Working remotely doesn’t have a ready-made check-in, so you need to make it a goal to deliberatley check-in daily and make sure you have the tools for your team to let you know how they’re feeling. This then brings to light how crucial active listening is as a manager, because it’s your responsibility to ascertain if your team needs further support.
2) The three O’s
Ensure that you use the three O’s, which stand for outcomes, others, and ourselves.
Focus on outcomes, so that for every meeting put in place, you and your team know what’s expected as a result.
When it comes to others, look at everybody else and ask yourself how you can engage them. Make sure that everybody has a chance to input, and that everyone feels included in the current project.
For the ‘ourselves’ section of the three O’s, it’s all about evaluating your previous beliefs and assumptions around working from home, and seeing how they will impact the current situation. If you feel you can’t trust your team to remain productive, look into why that might be, and make sure to address the problem as soon as possible… download the report to read the full article
