Mastering the Art of Building High-Performing Remote Teams

The rise of remote work has been nothing short of meteoric in recent years and for good reason. With technological advances and a growing recognition of work-life balance benefits, more companies are embracing remote teams. And it’s not hard to see why.

After the COVID-19 pandemic, managing remote workers has become more important than ever. It offers many benefits, from cost savings and increased productivity to greater flexibility and access to a global talent pool.

By allowing team members to work from anywhere, remote teams can tap into diverse skills and expertise while providing employees greater autonomy and control.

So whether you’re a small business owner or a multinational corporation, it’s clear that remote work is here to stay – and that the benefits of remote teams are too good to ignore.

Want to boost your remote team’s performance and improve how they work together? Keep reading to unlock strategies for fostering collaboration, productivity, and success in the virtual workspace.

What do we mean by High-Performing Teams?

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A high-performing team is a group of people that continuously exhibit excellent levels of cooperation, production, and success. These teams daily outperform the norm, generating great results and exceeding expectations. They have a distinct set of characteristics and dynamics that contribute to their success. You’ll enable people to collaborate, develop, and deliver work at the highest levels if you take the appropriate approach to performance management.

Let’s look at some characteristics of a high-performing team:

Have specific goals that are closely linked to team and company objectives
Recognize how their job adds to the organization’s mission
Roles and responsibilities are equally distributed
Clear and courteous communication
Projects are managed on priority basis
Respect and trust each other
Honor achievement together and acknowledge contributions
Prioritize continuous learning

8 Effective Approaches to Lead a High-Performing Remote Team

1. Manifest Clear Communication Channels

When it comes to remote teams, clear communication is crucial. Without the benefit of face-to-face interaction, it’s easy for misunderstandings and miscommunications to occur, which can lead to delays, mistakes, and even conflict. Setting clear communication expectations and protocols from the outset is essential.

Tips for setting communication expectations and protocols

This might mean

Establishing regular check-ins
Using specific channels for different types of communication
Setting response time expectations.
Choose the tools and technologies to facilitate communication – video conferencing software, team messaging apps, or project management tools.

By taking the time to establish clear communication expectations and using the right tools, you can ensure that your remote team stays on track, connected, and productive.

2. Foster a positive team culture

Building a favourable team culture is vital to keep remote employees engaged, happy and productive. Without the benefit of physical proximity, it’s easy for team members to feel isolated or disconnected from each other. That’s why taking planned steps to foster a positive team culture is necessary, even when your team is working remotely.

Tips for building a positive team culture remotely

One of the most important things you can do is

Set clear expectations around teamwork and collaboration
Establish regular team meetings or check-ins
Boost employees’ ideas and perspectives
Set up virtual team-building activities
Using project management tools that allow team members to work together on tasks and projects in real time.

By building a positive team culture and encouraging cooperation and teamwork, you can ensure that your remote team stays engaged, motivated, and productive, no matter where they are.

Worth exploring: Delegative Leadership – How to Use it to Empower Team Success?

3. Devise clear goals and expectations

Setting clear goals and expectations is crucial for the success of any team, but it becomes even more important when working remotely. When team members are not physically together, staying aligned and focused on the same objectives can be challenging.

Clear goals and expectations help remote teams stay on track and work towards a common purpose.

Tips for setting SMART goals and tracking progress

Setting Smart goals is the right way to ensure your team works towards specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound objectives. Here are some tips for setting SMART goals and tracking progress:

Be specific: Make sure your goals are clear and detailed. Vague goals can be challenging to achieve and measure.

Make them measurable: Set goals that can be measured so that you can track progress and celebrate successes.

Ensure they are achievable: Set goals that are challenging but achievable. Unrealistic goals can be demotivating and lead to burnout.

Set a timeline: Timelines are a very important factor in project management. Establish a reasonable timetable for reaching your objectives. This helps to keep your team on target and encouraged.

Track progress: Regularly track progress towards your goals and celebrate successes along the way. This will help keep your team motivated and engaged.

4. Hand Over the Right Tools and Resources

Access to the right tools and resources can make a difference for remote teams. When you’ve got everything you require, it’s much easier to stay on top of work, communicate openly, and work together productively.

Tips for selecting and implementing remote work tools

Identify your needs: Before you start picking out any tools, take a minute to think about what your team really requires. What are the biggest problems you’re facing? What tools will help you address those pain points?

Do your research: Once you’ve listed down your problems, you can conduct a research on different types of tools in the market. Read reviews, ask for recommendations, and test out different options.

Train your team: Once you have selected your tools, train your remote team to use them fruitfully. This will help ensure everyone is on the same page and can use the tools to their fullest potential.

Ensure remote access: Ensure all your resources are usable remotely. This is chiefly relevant for remote teams demanding access to physical resources.

Communicate availability: Make sure to give your team the details on when and where to find these tools and resources. In this way, team members stay on the same page and can utilize what they need to get the task done.

5. Embrace Achievements

When team members in virtual settings feel comfortable and appreciated enough to express their thoughts, their innovative abilities can greatly benefit your company. By elevating a culture that fosters employee achievements and creative problem-solving, you are unlocking the door to positive transformations such as:

More efficient processes
Improved products
Administrative effectiveness
New revenue streams—that can significantly enhance your organization’s financial standing.

Tips for celebrating remote team achievements:

Accept ideas and suggestions from employees.
Once they submit something, try to allow them to experiment and find new ways.
Appreciate ideas and their work- a little recognition can go a long way.
Keep everyone in the loop by providing updates on any suggestions being considered.

These days, everyone wants to feel appreciated for their work. It’s crucial to endorse the accomplishments and celebrate them together. It brings employees closer and helps strengthen our connections with each other.

6. Hire the Right People: Why Cultural Fit and Soft Skills Matter

When building a successful remote team, hiring the right remote talent is key. While technical skills and experience are important, cultural fit and soft skills are just as crucial. Here’s why:

Cultural fit: When everyone on a team is on the same page and shares same values, it makes it a lot easier to work together and get work done. You’re more likely to pull off your goals when a team is working towards them together.

Soft skills: Remote work requires strong communication, time management, and problem-solving skills. Hiring team members with these soft skills ensures that your remote team is productive and successful.

Tips for Interviewing and Onboarding Remote Team Members

Assessing skills and experience when hiring someone remotely can be overwhelming, but there are ways to ensure you make informed decisions. Here’s how:

Use skills assessments: Remote evaluations are by far the most successful technique to hire remote personnel. Online tests and assessments are hands down the best way to examine cognitive ability, personality characteristics, behavioral preferences, and technical capabilities.

Ask for work samples: To illustrate the candidates skill level, ask them to offer work samples or complete a sample project. It will help them to showcase their capabilities.

Check references: Check references to confirm candidates’ experience and analyze their work style and communication skills.

Use behavioral interviewing: Behavioral techniques are essential for screening and interviewing remote personnel. Examine applicants’ problem-solving abilities, communication skills, and work style using behavioral interviewing approaches.

Consider personality tests: Consider using personality tests to measure candidates’ cultural fit and soft skills. Just make sure to use them as a supplement to other assessment methods.

7. Adopt Cloud Project Management Software

Consider adopting cloud-based project management software to keep all of your team’s project information and records in one location. They are pretty simple to use and keep everyone harmonious in real time. With this, you may also view project updates and progress at any time.

Plenty of Agile Tools for Your Scrum Team exist, like

Asana
Jira
Proof Hub
Airtable
Confluence
Trello
Wrike
Zoho Projects

8. Build Trust

Trust is the cornerstone of effective cooperation, and it is especially important in remote teams when team members frequently work individually. Trust instills a sense of security in team members, allowing them to take chances, work efficiently, and contribute to their full capacity.

Remote teams encounter unique trust-building challenges, such as a lack of face-to-face interaction, different time zones, and cultural differences, all of which can create communication barriers and inhibit trust.

To solve these challenges, place an emphasis on community development and encourage team members to engage informally, such as through virtual team-building events or casual chat channels.

Related article: How to Develop an Effective Hybrid Work Culture?

Final Takeaway

Putting together a high-performance team is a long race, not a quick fix. But the payback will be well worth it if you pull together the correct combination of talents and experience and adopt these effective strategies of a high-performing team.

If you’re overwhelmed with building a successful virtual team, Invedus got your back. Our remote staffing services can help you find the right people for your company without all the stress. We’ve got experience in various industries, so no matter what field you’re in, we can help. Connect with us, and let’s work together to build the perfect remote workforce for your business.