Forbes

16 Ways To Ensure Alignment Among Remote Team Members

[as originally published on forbes.com]

Since remote work has become the standard in the Covid-19 era, business leaders need to make an extra effort to stay connected and involved with their teams. Without face-to-face interaction daily, employees risk losing a sense of teamwork and camaraderie.

It’s a manager’s job to check in and engage with their teams to ensure this doesn't happen. That’s why we asked members of Forbes Business Council what managers should do to ensure team alignment while working remotely. Try these 16 smart ways to get everyone on the same page, even if they’re geographically dispersed.

1. Encourage Overcommunication

Managers should instruct their teams to overcommunicate! Remote working is a bigger adjustment for individual team members. They need to become proactive in supporting their leaders and managers in a way they didn't need to at the office. Managers can then spend their time supporting them versus micromanaging from afar. - Jason Alejandre, Game Mechanic Studios

2. Create A Hybrid Environment

Plan a new combination of remote and on-site working or a hybrid virtual model where some employees are on-premises while others work from home. Create an agile, hybrid environment that takes into account cyber-safe enterprise services and helps develops standards of practice that include cultural collaboration and social cohesion between the in-person worker with the co-location worker.  - Dino Miele, Spark Niagara

3. Set Agendas

Set agendas and ensure key objective achievements per team timeline are agreed upon. Having a team consensus is important in gaining commitment and buy-in to achieve common goals. To collaborate, use platforms like Microsoft teams or Slack where channels are always open for chats and collaboration. - Zeenath Kuraisha, Asia Pacific Sales & Marketing Academy PTE Ltd

4. Organize Virtual Meetings

We are a 100% remote company with 40-plus employees. We organize virtual meetups on whereby.com every week with all the team, and use Basecamp as our project management platform to discuss our business and personal projects. We also run smaller video conferences with no more than seven people to improve relationships inside teams. - Dario Vignali, Marketers Company 

5. Set The Context And Agreements For Remote Work

Have an initial talk with reports to set clear context and agreements on how work will be completed going forward. A daily 15-minute scrum-like team check-in on Zoom that works for everyone's schedule can be a good way of keeping the team aligned and engaged. - Sambrita Basu, CultureStrategy

6. Respect Your Team's Time

Collaboration and respect for everyone's time are the keys to success. Hold calls that are needed, set agendas to help keep everyone focused and do timely follow ups on asks to keep everyone on track. Most importantly, support your team. This is a quick change and everyone is doing their best. - Feyi Olopade Ayodele, Cancer IQ

7. Check In On A Personal Level

As fascinating as this new work-from-home experiment is, my biggest concern is that employment can become too transactional and individual. Managers need to dedicate time in their week to see how their co-workers are doing on a personal level. Find out what they've been up to, thinking about or focusing on outside of their work duties and identities to have a human exchange and connection. - Kevin Ervin Kelley, Shook Kelley

8. Ask About Their Well-Being

Check in on your employees' well-being! Many feel unsettled and stressed about the future because there are so many unknowns at play. Are they going to home school? Will they be okay financially and healthwise? Having a consistent, open dialogue with your employees beyond work tasks will give them a sense of stability that will shine through in their lives and work. - Caitlin Strempel, Rising Ranks Digital

9. Think Beyond Task-Based Video Calls

Teams learn substantially from overhearing colleagues, managers and inter-team chats. With remote work, one should avoid doing only "task-based" video calls versus a holistic alignment. For example, one specific idea to let the team learn is having open rooms where members can hang out, chit-chat and ask oblique questions about what they are working on to detect misalignment. - Ashutosh Saxena, Caspar.AI

10. Listen To Your Employees

That means listening to your employees concerns, ideas and their input. Provide a good, clear information flow from the organization and your expectations with regular check-ins. Nordic management puts everyone on equal footing, enabling the empowerment of employees to speak openly, identify problems and opportunities and come up with creative solutions. - Rebecca Scheel, Innovation Norway

11. Implement The Right Metrics And Milestones

Managers want to make sure they have proper metrics and milestones in place to judge the productivity of their team. This is not the time to be a click manager as a leader of an organization. You need to have the proper objectives in place to judge how effective and efficient your team is performing offsite during this crazy time in America. - Jake Tayler Jacobs, Assets Before Splurging LLC.

12. Have One-On-One Conversations

Hold personal, one-on-one conversations. I know that it feels like weekly check-ins with the individuals you manage may seem like an additional burden, but the lack of human connection that everyone's suffering from detracts from their overall work experience. You need to be intentional about celebrating good work and telling people they're doing a good job too. - Jessica Scanlon, Hot Dog Marketing

13. Have A Daily Team Huddle

We've implemented a daily Zoom huddle, every morning at 9:30. We start by asking the team if they have anything they need to ask or discuss with the broader team. After that, leaders go through and discuss their projects, milestones and deadlines. We round up again by asking if anyone has any questions about that. We also set 10-minute Zoom catch-ups with each direct report every week as well. - Adam Jacobs, Bubblegum Casting

14. Directly Connect At Least Once A Week

When team members have not been in direct contact with their team leaders for more than a week, they will start to become complacent. Productivity will inevitably decrease when this happens. Leaders should set aside a certain amount of time weekly to connect with their team members. If the team leaders do not have time to do this, they should appoint someone to handle this task. - Andrew Fortune, Great Colorado Homes

15. Communicate Throughout The Day

Without the context of in-person meetings and face-to-face interaction, managers really need to bump up their communication. If you feel like you’re overcommunicating, you’re probably hitting the mark. My team uses Slack and Zoom throughout the day to keep communication tight while we’re all working apart. - Celeste Robbins, Robbins Architecture Inc

16. Keep An Open-Door Policy

Face-to-face time is extremely important, and when working remotely it comes less naturally so leaders need to make more of an effort. I keep an open-door Zoom policy. If someone on my team needs me, they know they can ask to hop on a quick Zoom call to discuss. This takes a lot of effort, but it establishes the kind of environment I would have created if our company wasn't 100% remote. - Valerie Donohue, ChatterBoss