If you think remote team management is the same as working together in an office room, you’re wrong, because it’s too hard. During the COVID-19 quarantine, we’ve all needed to accept more work-from-home methods and resources, and how many remote employees handle their everyday tasks has drastically changed. Managing remote teams includes other strategies in their daily workspaces that most are not used to employ. If you’re a CEO trying to improve your company’s profitability or a boss trying to keep workers in line, every digital space leader needs to adjust to the WFH circumstances to thrive both now and in the future. Here are the ways your company might improve from work from home situation. You have to trust your Employees more If you can’t trust your team members to work from home there is nothing you can do to change the circumstances of your remote work. Now is the time to develop good relationships with your employees and learn how to empower them to handle themselves a little bit more. You have to do the stuff. There are not enough hours in the day for every person on your team to complete all of the tasks and micromanage. That’s why you’re going to have to give them a little breathing space, set your expectations, and leave the rest to them. Working from home will look different for every single person. Some will have fancy setup stations while others will look more like the pictures in the above Tweet. The lesson is that you can’t always judge your remote team productivity on what your employees wear, how they behave, and the exact hours they keep, especially in these new circumstances. Here are a few tips: Set clear guidelines/expectations for everyone: If you’ve expressed what you want to see from them, you’ll feel more comfortable in the people you handle. Communicate regularly via telephone and video: text messages and chats simply do not allow you to communicate in the same way with your team. Check-in schedules and tracking of progress: If you are using an app or holding a conversation with your team, there should be daily check-in points on projects. People have more Time and Balance Our second advantage of running remote teams is getting a little more personal. You can find a rise in their productivity and satisfaction when you are supervising workers in their home environments. It undoubtedly comes from the ability to get a little more free time and a healthier work-life balance. While this may not be the case for some, many remote employees are grateful for the ability to spend more time with the family, lower their commute, and simply enjoy more life at home. As you can see from the above graph, work-life balance is the number one reason most job seekers are looking for “flexible” work arrangements. The abrupt switch from home policy to work during the COVID-19 spread may have come as a bit of a surprise, but it’s a step towards what other workers are actively seeking. Note that this can be a positive step for many families and individuals when it comes to handling remote workers and troubleshooting work from home Strategies. Talk about how your team feels happy, and what you can do to make remote work more enjoyable, and more successful. Remote management leads to more Self-Evaluation Working from home, particularly during a difficult period, will likely force your team to optimize and survive for self-assessment. Many managers would remember issues that already existed – but now that everyone works from home, they are reflected in a harsh light. Take a look, for example, at the commonest communication problems that hinder successful leadership. You can use this time as an opportunity to re-evaluate how you lead, especially from a distant perspective. You already need to try new ways of interacting and getting things done. One of the best ways to self-assess the workflow of your team is to translate it into one of the best remote team tools. Chances are, moving to one of those sleek productivity devices will show some of your limitations and help improve your workflow. Bear in mind, though, the assessment of the team is not stopping there. Self-evaluation can also occur within any member of the team. In work from home settings, as a mentor, you should guide them to better understand their success and weaknesses. Conclusion Operating from home is new and difficult for all of us. If you manage a remote team this is your chance to use the changes as resources for real development. Build trust among your distant team. Highlight the advantages of remote employment, such as greater time and a better balance between work and life. Automate what you can, evaluate the old systems, and work for absolute transparency and clear communication in general. COVID-19 may come and go, but it looks like that transition to working from remote locations will stick. This is your opportunity to take control skills ahead of the curve and improve the team’s productivity at the cusp of transition.