Back to Basics: Teach Managers How To Provide Feedback
Feedback can be valuable for your employees to develop and reach important goals, but more feedback isn’t always better. It’s not as simple as telling
November 12th, 2024 – VP of Customer Success with SkillCycle
Workplaces look different today than they did in the past. Gone are the days of a standard 9 to 5 day spent in the office, with many companies instead working to find the right balance of hybrid and remote work. This means remote team building isn’t something organizations can ignore — it’s the new reality.
It’s a reality that could help strengthen organizations in valuable ways. According to McKinsey, the potential benefits of remote and hybrid work include real estate savings, improved employee satisfaction and performance, and a more diverse and inclusive workforce.
HR leaders are critical in guiding organizations through these transitions, ensuring teams remain engaged, productive, and aligned with company goals despite the physical distance.
To better understand how to build a strong culture in your remote and hybrid teams, let’s dig into:
Building a strong culture and fostering trust are essential for success, yet both can be challenging when team members aren’t in one place.
Let’s start at the top. Helping teams navigate the benefits and challenges of remote working takes intentional leadership. Yet, 70% of managers report to Gallup that they have had no formal training in how to lead a hybrid team.
Understanding what it takes to lead remote teams effectively is not just about managing productivity. It’s about creating an environment where employees feel connected, valued, and empowered to perform at their best.
One of the biggest challenges for HR leaders is understanding that culture doesn’t happen accidentally. Instead, it’s built through small, intentional choices.
For instance, working independently can be both a benefit and a challenge of remote working. How you handle communication about how and when employees work will influence how these workers feel. A company that values autonomy might foster trust by not micromanaging employees’ schedules. Conversely, requiring constant updates could shape a culture of hyper-transparency. Every choice sends a message about culture.
A key issue for HR is ensuring equity between in-office, remote, and hybrid employees. Company initiatives not tailored for virtual participation often make hybrid or remote workers feel overlooked.
For example, if managers don’t set up a conference room with proper technology to support remote workers, it implies they prioritize people in the office. Similarly, some office traditions won’t translate to virtual teams. These employees may need different outreach and activities to reach the same goals of connection and engagement.
HR leaders must consciously build an inclusive culture that respects and integrates different work locations and styles. This means valuing visible and virtual contributions equally and making deliberate, value-driven decisions that reflect the company’s priorities.
The best way to effectively engage your remote employees is by fostering a culture of transparency, trust, and clear communication. The key is cultivating a culture that sees and values each team’s unique contributions — instead of viewing remote, hybrid, and in-office employees as separate groups.
In a remote setting, employees can sometimes feel isolated or disconnected from larger organizational goals. To bridge this gap, prioritize regular one-on-one check-ins beyond project updates to address personal development, career growth, and overall job satisfaction.
These conversations allow managers to understand individual challenges, offer support, and set clear expectations that align with both the employee’s goals and the company’s vision.
Facilitating one-on-one meetings or mentoring sessions between in-office and remote employees can build understanding and rapport across teams that might rarely interact. Combining these social touchpoints with goal-oriented sessions can help employees feel both connected to their colleagues and aligned with the company’s objectives.
For instance, a marketing and sales team meet-up where employees discuss challenges or insights can break down perceptions of each team as a monolithic entity. It can encourage empathy and collaboration between individuals.
Providing learning and development opportunities can go a long way to keep remote employees connected. A robust feedback loop where employees regularly share insights, ask questions, and highlight roadblocks will help you stay in tune with team morale and adapt strategies in real time.
An intentional, inclusive approach builds a stronger community and strengthens company culture, regardless of where employees are physically located.
For many leaders, not seeing employees at work raises concerns about productivity. However, just because work isn’t visible doesn’t mean it’s not happening.
According to research from Gartner, increased employee performance, intent to stay, and reduced fatigue widely correlate to greater levels of location flexibility, intentional collaboration, and empathy-based management.
Organizations need to create an environment where remote teams can thrive. Be ready to explore new remote team solutions if these employees lack the tools or support to be productive outside the office.
Here are seven critical factors that will help drive success for your remote teams:
Building trust is foundational to effective remote management. Trust must flow both ways, with leaders trusting their teams and teams trusting their leaders.
To foster trust, leaders can practice vulnerability, empathy, transparency, and consistent availability. A team without trust will struggle to function effectively, making this factor the backbone of remote success.
2) Communication
In remote teams, over-communication is essential, as there are more opportunities for misunderstanding. So, get in the habit of clarifying even simple messages multiple times to ensure complete alignment.
Clear communication fosters transparency and keeps everyone aligned on expectations and goals. Setting communication protocols will help you create a framework for trust and engagement.
3) Navigating ambiguity
Remote and hybrid workers may receive different messaging or priorities from multiple sources without obvious ways to verify information. Effective communication is crucial when navigating this type of ambiguity.
Try to outline clear communication channels and offer opportunities for employees to confirm where needed. Share team objectives and responsibilities and focus on the quality of work your people deliver rather than hours of activity.
4) Using the right tools
Selecting appropriate tools to support your remote and hybrid teams is critical, as these employees won’t benefit from face-to-face interactions. Be intentional about how your organization uses particular tools and share these guidelines with your teams.
For example, use instant messaging for short, tactical updates, emails for more detailed communication, and meetings for in-depth discussions. Be clear about the purpose of each communication and use tools to support your team instead of micromanaging.
5) Employee engagement
Maintaining the engagement of remote employees requires taking proactive measures. Regular check-ins, one-on-ones, clear growth goals, and supportive leadership build engagement.
Engaged employees are happier and more productive, and contribute to a more robust company culture and customer satisfaction. As a leader, your role is to ensure employees feel valued and purposeful in their work.
6) Change management
The original transition to remote work may have created some uncertainty in the early days, but many organizations have seen success with hybrid and remote team solutions. A clear change management plan can provide structure as your approach evolves.
Encourage both leadership and employees to share successes and any resistance to change. This will help clear the air and allow you to work toward stronger collaboration.
7) Empathy and emotional intelligence
Leading with empathy and emotional intelligence (EQ) enables leaders to understand team dynamics, resolve conflicts, and build collaborative, productive relationships. Empathy and EQ improve communication and reinforce trust in the team.
Leaders should celebrate and model empathy, holding themselves and their teams accountable for practicing these values.
To strengthen trust between leadership and remote or hybrid employees, focus on creating a culture of trust over micromanagement. When leaders expect employees to be always visible online, it creates a culture of distrust, making employees feel infantilized rather than valued.
Instead, trust comes from setting clear goals and allowing employees autonomy in how and when they complete their tasks. Prioritize outcomes over constant oversight and check-ins, focusing on whether employees meet expectations rather than monitoring each step they take to get there.
You can build this trust further by openly acknowledging remote and hybrid employees’ contributions, as their work is often less visible until completion. Regularly celebrating milestones, even small steps, helps keep remote employees engaged and visible in the organization’s success.
Finally, HR should recognize that leading remote teams requires new management skills. Many leaders may struggle to build trust and foster engagement with remote teams simply because traditional management practices don’t translate directly to a hybrid or remote setting.
To bridge this gap, HR can offer skill-building opportunities, such as coaching, that develop leaders’ abilities in communication, empathy, and accountability specific to remote and hybrid environments. Actively enabling this skill development empowers you to foster a culture where trust and support replace constant monitoring, benefiting employees and the organization alike.
HR leaders can demonstrate the success of remote and hybrid models by focusing on a blend of goal-oriented metrics and employee engagement data, rather than purely tracking hours worked or online presence.
Measuring goal attainment, where teams have clear, time-bound goals, provides executives with concrete data on whether employees meet performance standards regardless of where they work. This helps you sidestep the temptation to monitor hours online and encourages evaluating outcomes, which ultimately supports a culture of trust and productivity.
For example, assessing employees’ job satisfaction and mapping this against their goal completion rates can help determine if hybrid and remote setups support productivity and well-being.
Engaging employees to gauge job satisfaction, likelihood of recommending the company, and perceived support from leadership gives a well-rounded view, showing whether employees are meeting their objectives and how the work model affects their morale and long-term retention.
Balancing employee experience with executive goals starts by challenging the assumption that there’s a natural conflict between the two. The solution lies in creating transparency around goals and ensuring both employees and executives understand their alignment.
This means making goals highly visible at all levels and continuously updating teams on progress so employees know exactly how their daily work ties into larger organizational objectives. This visibility can empower employees with a clear sense of purpose and foster ownership of their contributions to these goals.
Organizations must actively support employees in achieving their goals to maintain this alignment, especially in remote environments. Rather than overseeing every step, focus on enabling employees by providing coaching, feedback, and necessary resources.
Regular goal check-ins, whether weekly or monthly, allow employees to flag any blockers early, which gives managers time to respond and adjust course.
Engaged and well-supported employees are more likely to achieve and exceed their goals. With these efforts, you’ll foster a positive employee experience and help your organization meet its objectives more effectively.
Effective remote team-building strategies foster collaboration and goal alignment, empowering employees to excel while meeting organizational objectives. Ultimately, a supportive culture enhances both employee experience and performance.
Your organization can foster a strong culture regardless of your team members’ location. Schedule a demo to learn more.
