Covid has drastically changed our work culture as workers migrate from shared spaces to home offices. This shift has meant the traditional way of working with teams sharing a physical space has morphed into a remote, virtual team alternate.
This new way of working means managers and directors are finding themselves in an unfamiliar place: remotely managing PR and comms teams. This brings with it a set of challenges that managers must navigate during already difficult times.
Research shows that managers often fail at remote team management because they apply the same practices as they did when teams were face-to-face. The main issue is that many managers often try to apply the same methods to the virtual team and they don’t consider what is different.
That said, I’m sure you and your team are well used to remote working by now and have found ways and channels of working that best suit your team’s and organisation’s needs.
However, the following tips can make this process smoother, by making your team more organised and most importantly, more productive.
Hire the right people for this new normal
Right now, some PR and Comms teams are growing and evolving. After painful job losses brought about by the impact of Covid, new teams are being formed to help organisations grow and refine their communications service.
It may seem like an obvious point, but you should look for team members who can thrive when working remotely. This means they will need different skills to those who thrive working in face-to-face environments.
Managers and directors should test how applicants work in a remote team, during the recruitment process. To find the ideal remote employees, it’s worth structuring the interviewing process differently compared to your search for an on-site employee.
Start with the following two techniques before moving to your standard interviewing process.
Check for verbal articulation skills by starting with a thirty-minute phone call to see how your candidate verbally articulates.
How clear are they? Is it easy to understand exactly what they mean?
If the candidate is not crystal-clear on the phone, you should carefully consider the consequences for your team and your organisation.
Next, check for listening skills. In the same phone interview, ask the candidate to respond by email to two simple questions. Ask the candidate to repeat each question in the email and respond to each one in no more than five sentences.
This part isn’t about candidate answers. It’s about how the candidate can listen to your instructions. If you hire a candidate who didn’t listen well during a job interview on the phone, you will probably end up spending lots of time repeating yourself. Followed by misunderstandings and chaos.
Understand employees working style and environment
Not two PR and comms teams are the same.
Think about the unique situation of each team member and learn about how each person’s situation is different. This will help you to get the best out of them and get their productivity right up.
Different people will also have different working styles and preferences. For instance, some will prefer to write first thing in the morning, then do other work like planning, pitching and scheduling social media posts afterwards. Others may be the total opposite.
Also, each person will have a different set of challenges working from home. Think about the factors that impact each team member’s ability to work from home. Some team members may have issues with background noise with other household members being home. Whilst others may have children home after 3.30pm.
Do all you can to have a flexible approach and think carefully about how you can help to overcome the specific challenges each person faces. You might also be able to change working hours to help some people work more productively.
Communication is key: Set Clear Communication Channels
If your house was on fire, would you email the fire service? Of course not. You would ring 999.
It’s the same for communicating within your team. You and your team need to pick the right channel for the right type of communication. You and your team members should decide together which communications should happen on which specific channels.
This will help you all to meet deadlines and build the trust that is essential for success.
At the same time, make sure all team communication is clear about the three W’s: WHO, does WHAT, by WHEN. This clarity will make it much easier for your team to hit deadlines and meet all your team’s commitments.
Also, remote workers can’t quickly and easily ask the person on the desk next to them to clarify something they don’t understand.
Encourage everyone to not be afraid to seek clarification or ask a question if something isn’t clear to them.
Other practical tips include:
· Have regular meetings with fixed dates, start times and time limits to stay on track
· Don’t have meetings without an agenda, to focus on the tasks in hand
· Let EVERYONE have their say in meetings to get input from the whole team
· Agree on a platform like Evernote where you can all share information and collaborate
Ultimately, now is the right time to do everything in your power to get the best out of your remote team. Taking the time to get the details of remote team management right will help you and your team to excel and get the positive recognition you deserve.
As Senior Vice President of Marketing for Evernote, Michele Don Durbin is tasked with empowering Evernote’s more than 250 million customers to stay in control of their lives, at work and home.