Building strong teams has always been an important part of fostering a positive work culture. However, as more employees work from home, managing those teams has become more difficult. Whether employees spend a lot of time in the office or never see each other, today’s managers must prioritize communication, trust, and transparency to get the job done.
Learn more about the skills and strategies required to succeed as a team manager.
What exactly is team management?
At its most basic, it is any activity that you engage in in order to build a strong team. The goal of these activities is to help your team connect in order to achieve greater success.
For example, when onboarding a new team member, you may meet with them individually to discuss their role, expectations, and responsibilities. You could also organize a casual team meet-and-greet and invite them to the company’s monthly happy hour to make them feel more included.
These management activities may include the following:
Check-ins on a daily or weekly basis Company retreats or social events
Meetings with individuals (like quarterly reviews)
Collaborative brainstorming sessions for training
The Advantages of Team Management
There are numerous statistics that show that healthy teams are the foundation of a successful business.
According to Forbes, employees who believe their voices are heard at work are nearly five times more likely to perform well. This results in higher dividends for your company, as engaged teams are 21 percent more profitable.
The happier employees are at work, the more likely they are to perform well and stay with the company. Employees who feel included and valued are the most satisfied. According to another study, 96 percent of employees believe empathy is the most important factor in employee retention.
Other advantages include:
Increased employee engagement
Increased retention
Goals are more likely to be met.
There are fewer workplace conflicts.
Team management is undeniably valuable, but how do you go about doing it?
Continue reading for five tips and strategies to help you manage your team successfully, whether you’re remote, on-site, or somewhere in between.
1. Concentrate on Objectives
Micromanaging is one of the quickest ways to destroy a team. Micromanagement makes employees feel defensive and as if you don’t trust or value their input.
Stay goal-oriented to avoid micromanaging, especially in a remote work environment. Is it important if your employee arrives at 9:30 a.m. instead of 9:00 a.m. if they meet their targets, arrive on time for meetings, and perform well? Focusing on results rather than arbitrary performance measures such as hours worked will help you build a stronger team.
2. Establish Clear Expectations
When you don’t have clear expectations for your team members, meeting goals becomes difficult and conflict becomes more likely. Your team members must understand what is expected of them, when it is expected of them, and why.
Finding balance within your team and making sure that responsibilities are distributed evenly are critical for effective team management. If you don’t establish clear expectations from the start, it’s much easier for one team member to take on more work and become overwhelmed or underappreciated.
3. Maintain Contact
Communication is the foundation of a strong team. Your communication cadence will vary depending on your job, but many successful managers find that daily check-in calls help them stay connected and on-task.
Depending on the size of your team, using communication channels such as Slack or a group text thread can also help you stay in touch. This not only increases productivity but can also help you bond, which is especially important if you have a remote or hybrid team.
4. Adopt Technology
Using technology to help your team is a great strategy that is becoming more popular as more people work from home.
As a team manager, you should ensure that your team members have access to the technology they require to succeed. For team-building exercises and training, you can also use technology such as video conferencing and webinars. Technology, such as Google Docs and other cloud-based file-sharing systems, can also help you collaborate if you have a remote team. Remember that using technology should streamline your work and relieve stress, not cause it!
5. Be a Person
According to Forbes, 89 percent of today’s employees expect their employers to assist them in balancing work and personal obligations.
As a manager, you must remain adaptable and recognize that your team is made up of people. Staying empathetic, accommodating people’s individual needs, and ensuring employees have time to enjoy their lives outside of work will help you build a happy, strong, and loyal team.
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This training course will teach you how to:
Projects should be tailored to the environment.
Create a product-based project planning approach.
Manage the use of resources
Project risk management
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