How to Improve Your Remote Teamwork

1. Why remote teamwork needs a 'we' feeling
2. Challenges for remote team work and remote team building
3. Three pillars for successful remote team work
4. Conclusion

Remote team work means taking responsibility together. The prerequisite is a sense of community that has to be worked on first - especially in distributed teams. The good news is: There are numerous strategies and tools that can support you in remote team building. Find out why successful remote team work is not a self-runner and which measures make sense in this guest post by Remote Times.

Why remote teamwork needs a 'we' feeling

Before the Corona pandemic, remote team work in Germany was literally still in its infancy. Since the beginning of 2020, a transformation process has taken place in many companies. In most cases, this has been very much to the delight of employees, because suddenly what had often seemed unthinkable before became possible: work was decentralized. According to a current survey by the statistics portal Statista on home office and mobile working, 73 percent of employees now support a legal right to work from home.

Nevertheless, when it comes to Remote Work in German companies, not everything is running smoothly yet. For example, there are complaints about organizational problems. Another danger is that individual employees may feel isolated or detach. And this can have fatal consequences. Because no matter how well process flows are organized - without an emotional attachment to the team, or to the company, there can be no real remote team work. Only a commitment allows to bundle energies and to be successful in the long term.

A strong sense of community promotes:

• productivity,
• work performance,
• employee satisfaction,
• participation in the team,
• cooperative interaction
• and the acceptance of group goals.

A sense of community therefore connects employees at different locations and brings all efforts together.

What is a remote team?

Anyone working in a remote team does their work in a decentralized manner, i.e., they are flexible in terms of time and location. Remote work can be performed in the home office, for example, but also theoretically in a co-working space, cafe or even at the beach. In addition to pure remote teams, there are also mixed forms: In so-called hybrid teams, there can be both presence days and home office days, as well as on-site and off-site employees.

In the next section we take a closer look at the challenges of remote team work and remote team building.

Challenges for remote team work and remote team building

Remote team work is based on positive group interaction. The goal is to take responsibility together, instead of acting independently: everyone must "pull together" - bring their respective strengths and abilities, support and motivate each other. 

The additional challenge for home office teamwork is to bridge the spatial distance. This requires a rethink, but also offers opportunities. Read below which aspects are particularly important!

Trust

An important prerequisite for remote team work is mutual trust. For unlike in the office, you don't see what other team members are doing during their working hours. But let's be honest: Even on site, you can't be sure that they are always acting optimally in the interest of the company. And mistrust can act like a self-fulfilling prophecy: Because the expectations we have of each other have a great influence on our behavior. Psychological safety has been proven to be the most important factor for a healthy team culture.

In general, you are better off focusing on the work results of your colleagues, rather than on their way to achieve them - because flexible work means also applying individual strategies to fulfill tasks. Remote team work can even prevent individuals from just killing time: According to Parkinson's law of bureaucracy growth (1955), work expands in exactly the measure that time is available for your tasks. Presence from nine to five is therefore no guarantee of productivity. 

If a colleague likes to take a walk for an hour after lunch to be concentrated again in the afternoon, then you shouldn't question that! Following your own biorhythm can lead to better results.

Support

Working in a team means, in the best case, not to be left alone. Support can take many forms: it ranges from a sympathetic ear to a tip to taking on tasks. In the office routine we often notice when someone has problems and can react accordingly. For example, you can give a sympathetic look when someone has a difficult phone call, or evaluate the call together afterwards. Verbalizing thoughts helps to sort things out anew and differentiate aspects more strongly from each other - this usually leads to solutions faster.

Emotional touchpoints have to be consciously created in remote teams | Illustration: Magdalena Vollmer

Such conversations can of course also take place online. However, the barrier to entry is much higher - especially if you fear you might catch your counterpart at an inopportune moment. In remote teams, thus emotional touchpoints should be created. And no one should hesitate to ask for help. We will come back to this later.

Communication

Whether at the coffee machine, at the printer or at the lunch table - in the office routine there are many opportunities to exchange. In the home office team, communication takes place less randomly, which can quickly happen that only little and on a formal level is communicated. 

You should not underestimate the impact of small talk on remote team building! Because a lively informal exchange can improve your remote team work by supporting your team members:

• to feel belonging,
• to reduce stress,
• to discover commonalities,
• to develop mutual sympathies,
• and to better assess each other.

With the right tools, the exchange in the remote team can work just as well as on site. Read more about this in the next chapter!

Three pillars for successful remote team work

In this section, you will learn how you can keep your home office team together. Essentially, it's about getting to know each other, agreeing on a common team culture, and setting clear goals. A positive relationship design is essential.

Aligning Together

Every team is initially a group, but not every group becomes a team. In order for a group to become a team, it must pursue common goals and values. A prerequisite for successful remote team work is thus a strong team culture. At the center of this is the issue of meaningfulness.

Each of you must be clear about why your team or your company exists and what he or she can contribute to your vision. That means you must define your Why, your How and your Where. In other words, it's about your Purpose, your Vision, your Values, your Strategies and your Goals. Questions such as the following are relevant for this:

• What are you working towards?
• What makes you special?
• What does each individual in the team want to achieve? And what contribution is he or she willing to make?
• What values are important to you? And do you also represent these values in everyday life?
• What do you want to achieve? And who contributes what? 

For digital visualization, structuring, and presentation Collaboration Tools such as MURAL or Miro are available, or explicit strategy tools such as Field, which can structure strategic work for the entire organization. Answers can be easily collected with the survey tools that are already integrated in common video conferencing tools.

Once you have set your direction, you can define your goals in more detail and make them measurable. For this, you have tools available with which you can set so-called Objectives and Key Results, or OKRs, set and introduce, such as the software Workpath or the human resources tool Leapsome.

More on the topic Team Identity and Team Culture can be read at the Remote Times.

Setting and adhering to rules of the game

Once you have fixed the scope of action for your remote team work, you should derive binding rules of the game that are quickly understandable for new employees: Everyone should know where their place is and who they can turn to for support. This is the only way you can complement each other optimally. 

Clear rules of collaboration provide the framework for Remote Team Work | Illustration: Magdalena Vollmer

Your rulebook should, for example, also stipulate how performance is recorded and reflected - after all, it is a meaningful instrument for your commitment and success. Also, you should define communication channels and accessibility. This could mean, for example, that there are two fixed time slots for answering e-mails every day. Or that criticism should only be verbal and never written, and that you shouldn't call each other outside of core working hours.

Of course, if individual agreements prove to be impractical in everyday life, you are free to revise them. However, this should always involve a joint consultation and you should not simply overstep on your own what has once been agreed upon! Pay special attention to your values, as they are the guiding rails for your remote team work. Therefore, regularly ask yourselves whether established values still apply in your remote team and whether they are being lived. Tools like Leapsomecan support you: This cloud-based platform enables continuous feedback, among others in reference to the values.

Continuous feedback enables effective remote team work |Image: Leapsome Website

Stay in touch continuously

It's important for remote teams to keep communication consciously running. The language should be clear and efficient. That means, start avoiding undertones and double meanings to prevent misunderstandings. Here are a few ideas to stimulate your everyday communication:

Daily Standup-Meetings

Common rituals strengthen the connection and structure the workday. How about starting every day together? A standup meeting is a short discussion on current topics that is traditionally held standing up. Ideally, there is a moderator who watches over topics, time, and speaking shares, because everyone should have their say, but keep it short. Your daily standup meeting should always take place at the same time and have the same structure. The following questions could structure your talks:

• What have you achieved yesterday?
• What are you focusing on today?
• Are there obstacles to overcome?

Fix these questions best on a taskboard, so every participant can see them. For that, Project Management Tools like Trello or Kanban Tool are suitable. For the meeting itself you can use Videoconferencing Tools like Zoom, Webex, or Google Meet.

Stand-ups also work if you work in different rhythms or even find yourselves in different time zones. For example, the platform Loom allows for asynchronous communication via video. So you can record short, personal video messages for your colleagues.

Check-ins and Check-outs

You should regularly make time to sharePersonal information in favor of your remote team work - for example, in the context of short check-ins and check-outs at every team meeting. Small talk should be a fixed part of your agenda.

Using targeted questions can start the chats. Examples include: "What did you experience over the weekend?" or "How do you feel about the approaching project closure?" Also for this, you should fix a spokesperson. This person should always address each individual employee by name, in order for a conscious connection to be formed.

Team Chat Groups

Tools like Slack, Microsoft Teams, or Google Workspace facilitate remote team work by enabling targeted and quick information sharing. It's important to not use your group chat for difficult topics like criticism. The group chat should have a casual tone and, from time to time, a funny meme or GIF could be shared.

The Status Messages inform your colleagues whether you are available or not. So you should always keep your status messages up to date. You could also use them to inform your colleagues that you are "in after-work drink mood" or "open for smoke break conversations" - it lowers the threshold to contact you.

Status messages facilitate the personal connection | Image: Screenshot Slack

Remote team building

Successful interaction also means having fun together. It strengthens the bond and promotes your remote team building. Meanwhile, there are numerous online offers for team games, such as the app Donut, which randomly pairs up for joint coffee or lunch dates. The collaboration software Mystery Coffee also brings team members together for virtual coffee dates, with matching criteria that can be individually adjusted.

Videoconferencing tools also make it possible, for example, to participate in a cooking or yoga class together or toast to a birthday. You decide what you are up for your home office team building!

Conclusion

Remote team work and remote team building follow the same rules as on-site, but differ in execution. It is important to stand for the same cause together and continuously stay in touch. No on-site presence required for that. Software companies have already reacted to the decentralization of work and offer numerous tools for support.