I had the opportunity to work in a remote team long before the COVID-19 pandemic arrived in our reality. At that time, a remote IT team was not something unique, but it was still a rarity. Today, almost all IT companies have an entire or half of the teams on the remote. Besides how to build processes on a remote, the topic that I wrote about in another of my article here on Linkedin (you can find it in my articles page on LinkedIn or in my activity history), an essential component is the TEAM MOTIVATION. So how to keep your remote team motivated?
The first step in keeping your team motivated is to keep in your mind Maslow's Pyramid.
Maslow Pyramid is applied not only for the on-site team but for the remote team too. You have to pay a reasonable wage so the team members will able to cover their physiological needs. Simultaneously, you have to respect your employee personal time and not organize meetings late at night or very early in the morning. You have to understand that your colleague probably has family working or learning from home during the pandemic.
To cover safety needs, your employee will want to have a stable and calm job, where he will know that you care about him, about his future and health. If he is sick, you need to offer him time to recover. If his partner or child is sick, you need to be open to say "spend some hours with your family." Of course, the job needs to be done, so you can agree with him when he will return and finish his tasks. Find a compromise!
For covering the Love and Belonging needs, you need to build a trustable, friendly environment inside the team. Trust must be a core value in your project or company. Where trust is present, friendship and belonging will appear. Speak with your team any time you have a moment. Organize one2one meetings regularly. Make your team leaders also have one2one meetings with their team members. Do everything possible to build a corporate culture where "no blame policy" will be applied. Blaming can destroy even the most successful and friendly team.
Respect your team. Respect all your members. Even if there are some issues, take them and respectfully discuss them with your team without balming. Communication is the key to a good partnership. At the same time, as a leader, you need to give your team members the freedom to find the best approach for solving one or another task and recognize their small victories.
Last but not least, implement the logic of the Continuous Personal Improving, Continous Learning. Spend time and resources to send your team to seminars, training, workshops, etc. Ask your team to research a topic or another from their field as often as possible.
Based on this, you can build corporate values for your team that will include:
Trust. The trust to each over. The trust for the work and services people are providing. The confidence to your people.
Communication. Build platforms for open communication. Ask questions and ask for comments. Be open to hear feedback and provide honest feedback but with respect.
No blaming.
Respect the personal boundaries of your team members.
In my practice, all these helped me to build a strong remote team. But I have to prevent you; this is not so easy. It takes time and patience to create such an environment from scratch.
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