Remote management: after two months of working remotely, an overview of the rituals and tools to succeed.

Everywhere, companies whose activities allow it, have started to work remotely to limit the spread of the virus.

The majority of them were not ready to live such a crisis and are adjusting their work organization as the crisis unfolds. But a forced homework situation, without preparation and sometimes with an unsuitable corporate culture presents unique challenges. For managers and HR teams, these challenges have an impact on both human and business levels.

But working remotely is entirely possible! At Zest we are used to this context and we share with you some tips to help you learn how to make it work the best way possible.

#1 Establish new communication rituals with your teams

There are many written and unwritten rules in each of your organizations. With the distance many of these rules must change and you need to implement new ways of communicating. For example, what is the equivalent of a “pat on the shoulder” when you’re working remotely? As a manager, it is important to quickly re-establish these points of contact to ensure effective communication within your team.

And that means the use of digital tools!

• Asana: for project management and planning
• Slack: for real-time conversations by topics 
• Zoom: for conference calls and meetings
• Zest: to monitor stress levels, make regular check-ins, follow up on goals and share ideas
• Google Drive ou Dropbox Paper: to work on online documents in collaborative mode
• Figma: for online designs in collaborative mode
• Discord: for continuous audio meetings

#2 Maintain management rituals and multiply team meetings to ensure a good transition.

Your team members cannot come to your office at any time to discuss current projects. This is why it is very important to maintain your management rituals or establish regular check-ins with your teams.

For example, at Zest, the whole team is used to do a “stand up” meeting at the beginning of each week and to make meeting per pole at least once a week. In our case, we went from 1 to 2 video Stand ups plus individual meetings per team every other day.

This allows us to ensure a more gradual transition to working remotely at full time.

We use Zest to listen to our teams’ feelings.

• Sharing the mood monitors in real time and creates an alert system.
• Regular surveys on the Coronavirus’ impact help with diagnosis and follow-up by team.
• They also allow, in just a few hours, to feed strategic or operational decisions and to verify the team’s perceptions of them.

The regular check-ins allow us :

• to exchange about each person’s feelings and thoughts
• give feedback and take action

The definition and monitoring of goals on a collaborative mode, as well as the regular check-ins, enable a more efficient management and teamwork.

Video meetings

We recommend that all team meetings be on video. Tools like Zoom allow you to see people’s faces and their reactions, to make eye contact and to function as close as possible to a face-to-face interaction.

For projects that require multiple interactions

We recommend you Discord, the simplest way to communicate orally.

#3 Adopt an asynchronous communication.

You can’t be in meetings with your team all the time – and neither should you – so set up an asynchronous communication. But when you ask a question, don’t expect an immediate answer.

Tools like Zest, Google Drive or Dropbox Paper allow you to communicate asynchronously with your team. Instead of scheduling a meeting to discuss an issue, why not work together on a shared document? You can request a response, comment or make suggestions. And all contributors have simultaneous access to the same information.

Together, you can get the work done without ever having to set up a meeting.

One of our channels conversations on Slack

#4 Document everything!

Keep everything in a place that is accessible to all team members. We use Dropbox for this, but a Google Drive folder would also do the trick.

For example, at Comet they record their “all hands” meetings and publish them on a private youtube channel to keep a record.

#5 Have Fun and Strengthen Ties

This is a stressful time for everyone. Be patient and empathetic! And try to set up some fun rituals for your team, they will certainly do everyone some good. Use these opportunities to build and strengthen the relationship with your team.

Keeping the “coffee machine” ritual

“Random coffee” on Slack gives you a Coffee Break Buddy every day! On the same principle, video happy-hour at the end of the day on Zoom will help take your mind off things.

We also use Zest to suggest new ideas :

And it was our Product Manager who put together a on Dropbox Paper document to share resources for doing exercise, relaxing, reading… Everybody participates with ideas to entertain themselves after work!

We hope that these ideas can help you to better manage this crisis and establish a homework culture in the long-term, if necessary.

💚 Take care of yourself and your teams.

💡 Discover Zest through a demo or talk directly to one of our experts!