How to Maximise Your Team’s Performance from Afar

As mentioned last time, Coggle has been a fully remote company for over 4 years. This meant that when lockdown measures came into force in March, we were lucky enough to be able to continue with business 'as usual' (with the exception of having to share our WiFi with a few more household members!).

In contrast, if you're reading this, you may have found yourself suddenly thrown into situations where you and your teams are working from home with no time to prepare. You might have settled into this well, or the last few weeks may have felt like a whirlwind of firefighting problems and hoping for the best.

As you begin to get used to this 'new normal', take some time to reflect and consider how you can improve your systems to make the next few weeks run more smoothly. With uncertainty around how long these lockdowns will remain in place, the sooner you can learn to maximise your team's performance remotely, the better. Here's our advice.

1. Maximise Your Performance First

It's great that you want to support your team effectively, but before you're able to manage them well you need to make sure that you're functioning at 100% (or as close as possible!) yourself. If you're feeling out of control and stressed, this will spread to your team.

The first thing to do is to ensure that you've 'sussed' working remotely for yourself, in the current context. There are plenty of guides and resources out there to help guide you through this, but here are some key questions to ask yourself:

view this diagram on Coggle

If you're not sure of the answer to the last question, then take some time to assess the impact of risks that Covid-19 will have on your business. What can you do to mitigate them? Speak your own line manager to ensure that your priorities are aligned. This will ensure you can communicate this vision clearly to your team.

The second thing to do is to ensure that you're also taking care of your own well-being. Research has suggested that employees' response to change is based on the model provided by their manager. Present a calm and confident front to your team and this will have a knock-on effect on them. This is not to propose that you should be suppressing your own anxieties, or theirs. The world is an uncertain place at the moment and it's natural to be feeling worried, so acknowledging that in the right way may help your team to feel more open about sharing their anxieties with you, giving you a better understanding of the support they're going to need. However, you should do this alongside providing confident reassurance and practical ways forwards to help them to feel more in-control and empowered.

Meanwhile speak to your own line manager about any anxieties related to your work, and seek professional support or support from your personal networks of friends and family if you need to. Follow these tips from the NHS to ensure that you are taking care of yourself.

2. Adapt Your Methods of Communication

You've probably already had to do this, and so this list of popular searches on Google will come as no surprise:

In an office we all naturally use different communication methods at different times: sometimes you need formal whole-team meetings, sometimes you need to send detailed information via email or in a shared document, and sometimes you'll have a quick informal chat when a problem arises. The same is true in a remote context, you'll need to use different forms of communication for different purposes.

There are three main types of tools that you'll need to get to grips with:

Remember that not everyone in your team will be confident in using these tools. If you know a member of your team is struggling then investing the time to help them get confident is likely to pay off in the long run. There are lots of resources to help, most tools have their own video tutorials help sites, and other resources. Aceanglia have produced easy-to-read guidance on Skype and Zoom which may be helpful for anyone with learning difficulties.

Even with help and resources, some of your employees may take longer to get to grips with these tools than others. Consider doing a 'buddy' system within your team, pairing those who are more technically confident with those who aren't.

Lastly, do make sure you have a conversation with your team about the etiquette expected when using these tools. Whilst it's important that your team still have opportunities to bond when working remotely, you don't want to be overwhelmed with notifications and keeping these chats focused on work will help to maximise productivity. You also don't want to descend into the dicey waters of having official channels being used for inappropriate jokes and office gossip. To avoid this, provide other ways for your team to bond virtually, make your expectations regarding chat usage explicit and reinforce this when necessary.

3. Schedule Regular, Structured Check-ins

One disadvantage of remote working is that you may find it harder to spot when a member of your team is struggling, and they could end up feeling unsupported and isolated. Using instant messaging tools like Slack can help with this, and ensure that small problems can be fixed quickly, but this should not replace regular 1-1 conversations with your team. Studies have suggested that more than half of our communication is non-verbal and so using video-conferencing software would be best. Make sure that these are scheduled in on a regular basis, so that you can identify any concerns before they become issues, and so that your team members know that they have high-quality time set aside to discuss concerns with you.

To make the most of this time, it helps to have an agenda for these check-ins. Allowing some time for informal conversation will help you to maintain your relationship with this member of your team, but without an agenda it can be easy to forget key points that you wanted to cover. Consider having a template that you tweak for each conversation.

Copy this template agenda template on Coggle

Remember to make a conscious effort to offer praise during these check-ins: when you're working remotely it can become easy to only speak to your team members when there's a problem. Employees can feel as though they're functioning in a vacuum without the feedback that tells them whether they're doing a good or a bad job, and this can affect levels of motivation.

It's also vital to make sure that you use these 1-1 check-ins to listen to your team members. Be aware that they may be struggling with more external pressures than usual, such as providing childcare or supporting elderly relatives, and they may need additional accommodations to reflect that. Stress and anxiety affect working memory and concentration levels, so the more that you can do to help support your team in reducing stress, the better it will be for their productivity (as well as, y'know, it just being the right thing to do). Showing understanding now is also likely to have a positive impact on their longer-term attitude towards the company, increasing their loyalty and investment in the team. Try to be solution-focused, empathetic, and as flexible as your context will allow you to be.

The frequency of these check-ins will depend on the size of your team, the nature of the work, and the individuals themselves. New employees are likely to need more regular check-ins than employees who have worked in their role for a long time. You should also make sure that any other employees who may benefit from more frequent check-ins, for example those with learning difficulties or mental health needs, have the opportunity for this. If the size of your team means that you don't have the capacity to provide this yourself then again you could utilise a 'buddy' system, pairing them up with a more experienced colleague.

4. Be Explicit in Your Expectations

You may be sensing a trend here, but clear communication really is key. Given that you will have less continual oversight of what your team members are doing and therefore may be less able to 'catch' errors before they are made, it's really important that your expectations are clear in the first place. This is also important for motivation: people will be more focused if they have clear goals that they can measure their progress against, and that they know they will be held accountable for.

We've also discussed the need to be more flexible at this time given individuals' other household responsibilities. However, it's important that this doesn't become a free-for-all. What areas are you willing/able to be flexible on, and what are the non-negotiables? Which members of your team does this flexibility apply to? How are you going to be measuring/judging people's productivity during this time, and how will that be affecting future performance management processes? You may need to decide these based on individuals' circumstances, but making this clear should reduce anxiety for your team members as they will be able to forward-plan accordingly. It also reduces the likelihood of later conflict if people feel they are being unfairly penalised for situations beyond their control.

Other points to consider:

5. Trust Your Team and Utilise Their Strengths

This is always going to be easier with some of your team than others; you know that Sarah will continue to be a super-human organisation whizz, but you've got a sneaking suspicion that Brad may take the opportunity of less supervision to sneak in a few extra games of FIFA and an "it's five-o-clock somewhere" beer. In a remote working situation you have to trust your team to continue working to the best of their ability. If you don't then you'll just end up creating more work for yourself that will prevent you from getting other jobs done. Trying to micromanage your team is also more likely to alienate, and build resentment. If you've followed our suggestions in this post, made sure that your team know what's expected of them, and have the tools they need, then you've done your bit and the rest is up to them. You may be surprised to find that with greater freedom many of your team members will perform better.

Other tips:

Lastly, whilst it may seem counter-intuitive, this could be the perfect time to trust some of your team members with more responsibility that they have previously had. Some members of your team may need accommodations to reflect additional family responsibilities that they're trying to manage, but others may actually welcome additional work as a way to distract from external anxieties, or to help keep themselves occupied if they're living alone. Whilst it's important not to overload these individuals, redistributing some work to reflect individuals' circumstances could be beneficial for everyone, and being trusted with additional responsibilities can be a real boost to self-confidence and motivation.

Final Thoughts

As is often the case in life the key to success will be in finding the right balance: balance between trust and accountability, and balance between flexibility and firmness. Be prepared for some trial and error, and try to be kind to your team and to yourself as you find your way into this 'new normal'. It's hard to get things perfect the first time around.

Posted by Catherine, March 2020.