Global Guide: 5 Tips For Successfully Managing a Global Team
There are so many benefits to be gained from operating with a global team. You can easily offer 24/7 customer care, and keep momentum firing along since there’s always someone working at any given time. Plus, productivity and job satisfaction soar when workers are trusted with freedom and flexibility.
Of course, there are plenty of complexities to balance out the benefits, and these are what we’ll be looking at today. Specifically, we’ll be taking you through five tips for successfully tackling these difficulties so you and your team can operate with optimal efficiency.
1. Ensure your IT infrastructure is flawless
If you’re based in the Asia Pacific, you’ll want to partner with one of the best managed service providers in Australia. Likewise, if you’re in Europe or the Americas, you’ll want to look for an MSP that can ensure your network, systems, software, and apps all run flawlessly and with the highest possible level of security. Giving remote staff an excellent IT experience is the best way to keep the work flowing consistently.
2. Security is paramount
Remote teams offer easy attack vectors for cybercriminals. All it takes is for one of your team members to click a link in a phishing email or allow their internet security to expire, and your entire system could be at risk. So, prioritize network security, and ensure you have a cloud-based disaster recovery plan in place. This will allow you to get back up and running in record time should you be hit with malware or a ransomware attack.
3. Delegate and authorize
If every question or approval must always go through you, then you’re either limiting your team’s ability to get work done or limiting your ability to take time away from your screen. By delegating some managerial tasks and authorizing trusted team members to make certain decisions in your absence, you’re removing some of the main blockages that tend to bring work to a halt in global teams. Instead of waking up to a string of messages asking for your approval and advice, you can wake up to completed projects and exciting updates from your team.
4. Set and respect work hours
If it’s 9 am for you and 9 pm for one of your team members, it may be tempting to send a message asking them to do a quick task for you. However, if this sort of thing becomes the norm, you and your team will end up feeling like you’re never truly free from work.
Thankfully, communication platforms like Slack allow you to set your availability and even add statuses that tell colleagues at a glimpse what you’re doing and whether you’re available. Encourage your team to use such features, and put a system in place that ensures only truly urgent matters can be addressed outside of a team member’s normal working hours.
5. Find your communication groove
Every one of your team members will have their own ideal way of communicating and collaborating. Take the time to work out everyone’s style, and take that into account when organizing everything from one-on-one catch-ups to company-wide meetings and client presentations.
Though you are in a professional setting, don’t be shy about using emojis to soften your messages and ensure the right tone comes through. While you should probably avoid emojis in emails, they’re perfectly acceptable on messaging platforms (so long as you don’t go overboard). Emojis are, in fact, incredibly helpful as they ensure the recipient is never left guessing about your intended tone.
Put these tips into action, and you should have an easier time keeping your remote team running smoothly.
