The world was gradually absorbing the concept of remote work and freelancing when the Coronavirus hit. A few months later, the concept that was still in its phase of acceptance transformed into the new normal. Companies worldwide turned into remote teams. Well, company success is something that cannot get compromised, whether the team is on-site or remote.
So, what are the top talent growth strategies
for remote teams? Although there are hundreds of innovative methods, the tried and true ones include establishing a comfortable yet competitive culture, improving communication, performance evaluation, and increase leadership qualities.
Are you feeling skeptical? Well, worry not because below is a comprehensive articulation. Read on!
1. Establish a Comfortable Yet Competitive Culture
Whether you’re on-site or remote, the company culture plays a prominent role in helping your team members grow and prosper. Let’s first jump to the basics to help you understand this concept better.
Company culture refers to the values, policies, and behavior of a company that creates a unique psychological environment. Every business has some core values and objectives. It formulates all the policies, activities, and tasks that promote the development of these values in the employees.
For example, the company has a formal culture that prioritizes honesty, competitiveness, and leadership as its values. Hence, it will shape its rules and practices in a way that makes the employees honest, competitive, and leaders.
In simpler terms, the company culture is a brand’s personality and unique identity. Employees behave accordingly.
When talking about talent growth in remote teams, an effective method is to create a comfortable yet competitive culture. Yes, it might be slightly challenging to do so in a remote team. However, if you care about the following tips, you can do so easily.
When interviewing, select team members by assessing their competence and leadership skills. Ask specific questions that evaluate their actions in a challenging scenario.
Besides, build a team that a diversity of talents present. Picking up people of the same skillset will lead you nowhere. However, various talents can help you tackle business problems easily.
While these steps ensure a competitive team that strives to do better, creating comfort would be your job as a leader. You see, according to Stanford University, employees are more productive and satisfied when they feel part of the team.
Engage with your employees, make them feel at ease, and value their efforts. Give kudos to members who perform well and so on.
2. Strengthen Communication
When attempting to lead a remote team, please do not adopt Theta Gang strategies. Remember, there is no room for taking risks. You must act in a definite manner and ensure flawless communication.
In remote teams, the most challenging obstacle faced is communication.
You see, with the team scattered over the globe and present in different time zones, ensuring that people receive the messages instantly is difficult. And, without proper communication, the work will get delayed. Thus, reducing efficiency and hindering the company’s performance.
So, how to improve communication in your remote team? Well, there are several methods that include:
• Meeting
Having meetings is an efficient way to tighten ties between the team members and help to know about each other. In your meetings, encourage everyone to participate and feel comfortable. Also, resolve all the problems here so that things get done mutually.
In case any member seems uneasy or needs special attention, you can always initiate one-on-one meetings to help everyone on board.
Also, we recommend video conferences than audio. It helps people become comfortable and create an on-site environment.
• Team Building Activities
Working in isolation, every remote worker suffers through feelings of intense pressure and lack of motivation. As the team is not seeing each other regularly, they feel as if they have to fulfill the projects on their own without any assistance from colleagues.
The team building activities proves to be beneficial for keeping the team motivated. There are numerous activities and applications.
3. Emphasis on the Performance
Improvement in your employees’ performance is directly proportional to his or her professional growth. And hence, the growth of their talent and skills.
For that very reason, as a company, you need to focus on improving their work performance. Now, it does not mean that you should overburden them with tasks for improvement’s sake. It only means that you should provide them opportunities to upgrade their skills. You can do so by arranging remote learning opportunities. For example, if your office is arranging a physical workshop for in-house employees, you can get your remote workers connected through virtual means. Ensure that these workshops engage the remote participants equally and have them participate.
Along the same lines, you can grant your employees an educational allowance if your company’s budget permits. You can monitor if they use it for educational purposes and even assist them in making the most out of it. If not, you can arrange a digital library with sufficient resources and encourage reading through reward or bonus-based competitions and events.
These approaches will add to both soft and hard skills of your workforce consciously and sub-consciously. Thus, improving their overall performance.
4. Bring out their inner leader
Lastly, ask them to think out of the box, just like a leader would. Assign them tasks that encourage them to expand their area of work and explore the responsibilities of other domains so that they can unveil their very own hidden potential.
You can do so by arranging shadowing programs, where remote employees get to guide someone in a higher position. Design schedules for them in which the remote employees can join the shadowing persons’ group meetings to learn from them. Following that, arrange events or meetings where they can put their learned skills to use.
You can even arrange mentorship programs where older remote employees can mentor newer employees. Hence, feeling responsible and putting their experience to use. Also, it allows interacting with people in similar positions having similar problems. Thus, providing a relatable ground.
Remember, if they continue to do only that which you ask of them, they will not connect emotionally and mentally with your company and its growth. Their mindset will remain limited to perform their designated task and leaving for home with reasonable financial compensation. So, if you want to encourage growth and strengthen the skills and talents that your workforce possesses, you need to tell them to step out of their chair now and then. And maybe take charge of things as it were their concern.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q. What can negatively impact workforce performance?
For boosting the talent growth of your employees, you need to take care of things to avoid just as much as things to do. A few negative elements can decrease the productivity of your workforce substantially. And these may include little to no incentives and recognition, toxic workplace culture, poor infrastructure, as well as poor facilities in the office.
Q. How can you improve office efficiency?
Improving office efficiency can positively boost employee performance. You can improve office efficiency by eliminating distracting elements, such as smartphones, central TV, or even noise-canceling headphones. You can also improve it by incorporating AI and automation. And hence, eliminating manual labor. The same applies to unstructured and unplanned meetings. Replace them with planned and directed ones, so they achieve more.
