Remote work is the new Wild West. If that side of the employment wars wins out, we’re gonna need new rules, new standards, new kinds of teammates, and new inspiration. Here’s how a number of companies keep their employees’ eyes on the ball even when many managers no longer have the opportunity to take a turn or two around the office floor to put everyone on their best behavior.
Tell us about your methods for keeping remote workers focused when they’re not in a traditional office environment.
As we continue to adopt and drive productivity as a distributed workforce, Medallia is helping our Medallians remain focused in a remote-first work environment through ensuring that our managers have regular check in’s scheduled in their calendars and provide regular feedback. We also encourage Medallians to carve out time to focus on professional development with “Feel Good Fridays”, which encourage all employees to have a light meeting schedule to allow time to focus on development. Medallia also has a robust ERG community, which brings together our diverse community of Medallians through a variety of events. Additionally, we are constantly listening and working with our employees through feedback to reinvent ways to socially connect with team members through: coffee chats, team happy hours, off-sites with virtual attendance options, etc.
What are some of the unique challenges of managing remotely?
Remote work could be difficult to navigate without a framework to guide leaders and their teams. Some of the unique challenges of managing remotely are leading with empathy, engage during times of uncertainty, establishing new ways of working, and confirming goals and priorities.
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Tell us about your methods for keeping remote workers focused when they’re not in a traditional office environment.
One of Ascension’s many best practices for keeping remote workers focused is encouraging our leaders to engage regularly with their teams by intentionally scheduling leader-to-associate check-ins in a format that works best for the associate (email, calls, chat or text) to help maintain a sense of purpose and belongingness. Using various forms of technology also has enabled Ascension to build community, celebrate special days and company milestones, and recognize associates for a job well done. As an organization, Ascension also advocates for self care and has made several resources available to support associates in mind, body and spirit — including virtual peer support groups, virtual one-on-one conversations with Ascension chaplains, weekly well-being sessions, and a free and anonymous app that can directly connect them to other well-being benefits like its employee assistance program.
What are some of the unique challenges of managing remotely?
At the core of successful remote work teams is trust. Higher levels of trust lead to a more engaged and productive team. Our culture is focused on listening to understand and having compassionate conversations that lift each other up, so in a remote environment we are checking in regularly and paying attention to the needs of one another. Remote workers can often feel isolated or that there’s a lack of communication. Remember to check in regularly with scheduled individual conversations, video calls or phone calls. The remote environment makes it all the more important to recognize and celebrate what’s working well with your team.
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Tell us about your methods for keeping remote workers focused when they’re not in a traditional office environment.
e encourage teammates to make Fridays a day free of recurring meetings, so people can do deep work and/or find time for serendipitous connection sessions with coworkers. This gives our teams a way to plan dedicated time for focused work.
What are some of the unique challenges of managing remotely?
Unique challenges: building rapport and connection over a screen takes more discipline and commitment than in-person settings! I think it also makes it harder for colleagues to learn through indirect observation and modeling. Something that’s a challenge and an opportunity is because these things are harder, it pushes managers to bring thoughtful intention to tools like regular 1×1 meetings, regular team meetings, and opportunities to provide clear, kind, real-time direct feedback. We have a terrific opportunity to reshape our ways of working and to make them better… if we reflect on what we learn as we go, I’m excited for where we might all land.
Check Out Strava’s Careers Page Here!
Tell us about your methods for keeping remote workers focused when they’re not in a traditional office environment.
At Everlight, we keep our remote staff focused by having daily team calls. In the call, each member goes through their top focuses for the day, what steps they will take to accomplish these tasks, and the timeline of when they will be complete. We build our strong company culture by having a company-wide meeting each Thursday for our remote and in-person staff. During these weekly meetings, our executive team celebrates promotions, anniversaries, and other company updates. Additionally, each year remote teams gather for a week-long tactical to build relationships and develop goals and priorities for the year. Staff members can join company-wide clubs, from book club to green team to fitness club, and everything in between! This encourages staff to communicate outside their normal department and get to know others nationwide!
What are some of the unique challenges of managing remotely?
Challenges with managing remotely include relationship building, communication, and feedback. It is more challenging to get to know someone when you don’t see them in person, but we overcome this with excellent one-on-one meetings that focus on relationship building and individualized goal-setting. Getting timely responses while managing remotely can be difficult; we utilize Slack to communicate so our team can work together to answer team members’ questions. Giving feedback as a remote manager can be difficult, and thankfully we can utilize platforms like Zoom, which allow us to provide candid and timely feedback that is received accurately.
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Tell us about your methods for keeping remote workers focused when they’re not in a traditional office environment.
At the onset of the pandemic, Cambium Learning Group was quick to assess the needs of its employees and innovate its policies to better serve and support them. Cambium took action and adopted a Remote First philosophy and approach to facilitate flexibility and future-proof our workplace. At Time4Learning, a Cambium company, we strive to keep our employees connected and engaged. Earlier this year, we completed our transition to a fully remote workplace, implementing a variety of strategies to stay connected, including:• Open chat channels, high availability and response time• Regularly scheduled meetings with access to shared documents, calendars, agendas and notes to foster collaboration• Making time for casual conversations to get to know new team members• Building a community for our employees to support one another via group chat threads, and encouraging all of us to cultivate connection by sharing family stories, best practices, observations and praise regularly.
What are some of the unique challenges of managing remotely?
A remote work environment brings new opportunities and benefits — but also new obstacles to think through and overcome. For example, it can be challenging at times as a manager to have visibility into when employees are available when all you have to go off of are calendars and on/offline indicators. We have found that open and active communication channels are vital for team health, especially with differing time zones and schedules.
heck Out Time4Learning’s Careers Page Here!
Tell us about your methods for keeping remote workers focused when they’re not in a traditional office environment.
As a Flexible First work environment, our employees work from home as often as they’d like, while using our offices for collaboration. We utilize our intranet and Microsoft Teams to keep employees engaged with each other across our global workforce. Last winter, we hosted the Better Together challenges, which teamed people up across the company to complete fun challenges, team building, and more for the potential to win prizes. This summer, we hosted Vertafore Spirit Week, each day having its own fun theme and activities/challenges, with prizes given out at the end. We’ve heard such positive feedback from our employees about initiatives like these that bring us all together.
What are some of the unique challenges of managing remotely?
Managing remotely not only means not being in-person, but it means managing across time zones. Each employee is different, and requires their own management style. We strive to find the best ways to manage our employees with bi-annual surveys, Future of Work surveys, and weekly one-on-ones with their managers.
Check Out Vertafore Careers Here!
Tell us about your methods for keeping remote workers focused when they’re not in a traditional office environment.
We believe that business can be done from home. And while that means giving up work in person, there are still tons of ways to stay connected to the team—you’re never more than a smiley face emoji or a video chat away. Throughout the organization, staff have access to various business collaboration tools like Microsoft Teams, Zoom, and internally built tools to facilitate teamwork and idea sharing without traditional restraints of walls and borders. After all, we support our customers no matter where they are, and we want to do the same for staff.
What are some of the unique challenges of managing remotely?
The world of work has changed, and we changed right along with it. Thousands of Concentrix staff now work from home and remote locations. Concentrix has been a leader in virtual workspaces for many years and leaders are accustomed to managing staff from all over the world and across different time zones. A global workforce means leaders must be agile when considering meetings and team engagement and it’s a priority in the organization to ensure that every staff member is heard loud and clear.
Check Out Concentrix’s Careers Page Here!
Tell us about your methods for keeping remote workers focused when they’re not in a traditional office environment.
Our team communicates heavily on Slack. We have an automated daily standup as a “check in” with our globally distributed team. We have weekly “office hours” led by our CEO and leadership where anyone can drop in for hot seat coaching, support, and brain stormed solutions. We have monthly “All Hands” led by our leadership team where we connect for business updates, kudos/recognition, and continued commitment to conscious leadership principles. We have a “culture connect” team that keeps a quarterly calendar of various activities we plan for the team.
What are some of the unique challenges of managing remotely?
Not meeting people on the team for years. A lot of our team was hired in Covid, so many we still have yet to meet in person.
Check Out DotConnect’s Careers Here!
Tell us about your methods for keeping remote workers focused when they’re not in a traditional office environment.
“What’s been crucial for Simplus in keeping our remote workforce focused on a common mission is our V2MOM goal-setting model. Our company playbook is the top level of this, and every executive, manager, and team member offshoots their own goals and metrics off of that. So even though someone in sales or marketing is going to have very different day-to-day tasks than someone on the delivery or IT team, those tasks are all centered on and pointing towards our shared goal of becoming the most respected partner in the Salesforce ecosystem. And since we are remote (and always have been), frequently reviewing the playbook during our monthly company meetings has been integral to keeping that focus and that unity strong year after year. ” —Amy Cook, Simplus CMO
What are some of the unique challenges of managing remotely?
“Being a manager in a remote environment is certainly no small feat. Managers have to make sure they are far more in tune with their direct reports and their habits: what means of communication are the most reliable when you need action fast? What times of day can you expect your team to be on (or what times do you know they aren’t available)? Some team members respond better or worse to messages over Slack, requests over email, or a quick sync over text. Taking the time to learn all those nuances with each individual on your team can be a challenge, but it’s critical for making remote work work for you.” —Amy Cook, Simplus CMO