Managing remote teams isn’t easy.
Without the comfort blanket of them always being in the office, you can find yourself worrying about what they’re doing day to day. Then before you know it, you start getting too heavily involved in their work, firing off messages all the time and becoming the dreaded “M” word… A Micromanager!
But it doesn’t have to be that way.
You can find a balance that will allow you to monitor remote employees without being a micromanager.
In this post, we’re going to cover:
- Why might micromanaging be detrimental to your employees
- Tips for monitoring remote teams without becoming a micromanager
So that you can be an engaged, thoughtful remote manager without worrying about becoming a micromanager.
Why micromanaging is detrimental to your employees
Micromanaging can sometimes be necessary. There are even times when you need it to get things moving. But over a long period, it will cause:
- Loss of trust
- Lower morale
- A reduction in collaboration
It will also start to wreak havoc on the manager’s health because they’ll soon find themselves responsible for everything. So it’s essential to make sure that you have a way to monitor what’s happening without falling into the trap of becoming a micromanager.
Tips for monitoring remote teams without becoming a micromanager
Now that you’re aware of the detrimental effects of micromanaging a team, these top tips will help you monitor remote employees without falling into the “micromanagement cycle”.
Have a weekly standup
A lack of control can cause people to micromanage. And not knowing what the plans are for the week will only make that worse.
An easy way to get around that is to ensure that you have a team standup at the beginning of the week that covers::
- Tasks outstanding
- Where they are at with it
- What are the priorities
- Where they need your support
Once you’ve done this you should clearly know what they’re doing and where the team will need your support. Which helps you to feel in control of your week.
Offer scheduled check-ins
Having too much contact with employees can be harmful, but not enough can be too!
You want to be a point of contact for your team without them feeling like they have to make contact every day.
You can do this by making sure that you have regular 1-2-1’s in the diary.
How frequently you organise them will depend on the manager and the team member, but as a rough rule of thumb, any more than once a week is overkill.
If you want to offer more contact time outside of 1-2-1’s, then sometimes having drop-in hours can be helpful. Blocking time in your diary and making the team aware that they can drop in on a video call during these hours can create a pleasant environment to deep-dive into an issue they’re having.
It can also stop them from worrying about bothering you while you’re in a meeting.
Use Workplace Analytics to track engagement and collaboration
The worst thing a manager can do is ask for daily work records of every task and meeting they are in. It becomes highly tedious for an employee, especially when some tasks don’t always go to plan and other days are less productive.
And let’s be honest, that time wasted sending reports could be spent on more critical tasks.
So instead of requesting records, we recommend supporting your employee’s ability to engage and collaborate using our Microsoft Teams Analytics Tool.
Here you’ll be able to gain insight into things such as:
- How long do team members spend in meetings and calls
- How your teams are collaborating and managing their workload
- The behaviours of high-performing teams and underperforming teams
Set a daily focus
Not having clear priorities can cause you to chase people for things constantly.
A great tip for avoiding this is to have people set a daily focus and communicate it. Setting a daily focus creates transparency around priorities and lets people know what is being worked on by each team member.
Have clear milestones for tasks
If you’ve got a less experienced team, this is an excellent tip for monitoring their progress on a task without micromanaging.
Scheduling sign-off and check-in points for each task will stop you from feeling like you’re checking up on them as it’s just a part of the process.
It also gives them that time away to work on the task by themselves with an understanding of the different milestones when they need to check in with you.
If you’re new to setting milestones we’d usually recommend (at a minimum) having:
- A 5-10 minute briefing call so they can ask you any questions
- A check-in point for 1st review
- A meeting for feedback on the review
- A 2nd review point
- Feedback meeting for final amends
- Final sign-off
Be a coach, not a micromanager
Managers are responsible for their employees and the tasks they do. Whereas coaches are responsible for the development of their team.
It may sound silly, but switching your mindset from being that of a manager to seeing yourself as a coach can have a huge impact on how you manage the team.
It’ll change everything from the way that you set a task to the way that you communicate with them.
Summary
Managing remote teams isn’t easy. Without them being in the office, you can find yourself watching what they’re doing daily, which leads you to micromanage them.
As a result, this will cause a loss of trust, lower morale and a reduction in collaboration.
Instead, you want to strike the right balance to monitor remote employees without being a micromanager. To avoid falling into the “micromanagement cycle”, we recommend:
- Having a weekly standup
- Offer scheduled check-ins
- Use workplace analytics to track engagement and collaboration
- Set a daily focus
- Have clear milestones for tasks
- Openly communicate to avoid misunderstandings
- Be a coach, not a micromanager
