Managing Remotely: Managing Remote And Virtual Teams

Managing remotely has become commonplace in the 21st century. But managing remote and virtual teams is far more challenging than managing local employees.

Out of sight, out of mind. Does this describe your remote employees?

The 21^st century corporation typically has workers dispersed all over the world. Leaders are challenged to lead, motivate, direct, and develop team members whom they rarely see, dispersed in numerous global locations in different time zones.  In some cases, the manager is not only separated from the team, but from his/her own manager as well.  As a result, even experienced managers find it challenging to manage people in this virtual environment.  Any weakness in management style is magnified by the distance.

Managing remotely through email, telephone, web conference and other electronic means is far more difficult than managing face-to-face. The trend of remote/offsite/virtual teams is likely to increase as technology makes it easier to do work from any location, and as the demand grows for knowledge workers -- wherever they can be found.

Our research has identified specific skills and strategies used by successful remote managers in corporations all over the world. When your managers develop these skills, your business reaps significant benefits:

• Valuable employees remain engaged in their work, loyal to their supervisors, and committed to the mission of the organization
• Remote employees have the same level of coaching and career development opportunities as their co-located counterparts
• Improved performance as a result of clearer communication, more structured  follow up, and more skillful handling of crucial conversations
• Less time required to address conflict and problems created by poor communication
• Greater collaboration and commitment to the common goals of the group and to the key business goals
• Virtual teams achieve more in less time

Managing Remotely Training highlights:

• 10 most common mistakes made when managing remotely
• Learn from success: best practices of the most successful companies
• When and how to effectively use email, phone, web meetings, videoconferencing and other communication technology
• How to make the best use of “face time” given limited travel budgets
• The remote manager’s communication toolkit: what every remote manager needs to know
• How to stay connected with regularly scheduled “maintenance” phone conversations
• How to handle performance issues when you’re not there to see the performance
• How to coach and develop from a distance
• How to keep remote employees engaged
• How to build teamwork in virtual teams

Managing Remotely Methodology

Participants in Managing Remotely spend most of their workshop time in practices with coaching and feedback in P2P Videolabs™ – AlexanderHancock’s trademarked process for rapid development of business communication skills. They bring their own real situations to use in the practice sessions. Since the majority of remote communication takes place by phone, these practices will pay particular attention to how managers come across by phone, using real situations that they bring to the workshop.

Managing Remotely Customized Solutions

To ensure that training is not just an “event,” but instead produces enduring results, we customize Managing Remotely to fit your unique situation, business strategy, culture, and people.  After discussion with you and other experts within your organization, we select the emphasis, specific skills to be developed, key learning points, exercises, and case studies for practice to create a solution tailored just for you.

Managing Remotely Applications

The following are some of the ways our clients have used custom versions of Managing Remotely:

• To support the new organization resulting from mergers and acquisitions that created numerous distance reporting relationships
• To support a matrixed organizational structure
• To strengthen organization-wide support for a customer-first initiative
• To enable virtual software teams to collaborate on rapid project development from many parts of the globe
• To build skills in an organization that shifted to a shared services model
• To reduce travel expenses

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