Best Practices for Remote Work: Team Guidance

It's been said that as soon as one member of your team is working remotely, your whole team is working remotely. While there's certainly some truth to that statement, once your entire team is working remotely, questions inevitably arise about maintaining communication, culture and camaraderie. 

Luckily, the best practices for working remotely as a team are largely the same as the best practices for teams that can meet face to face! You just need to pay a little more attention to the smaller moments that we can take for granted when we're all in the same place.

When working remotely as a team, here are some key things to keep in mind:

• Communicate frequently. Especially when your team is transitioning from non-remote to remote work, it's vital to keep the level of communication consistent -- you may even want to increase it!
• Choose the right tools. More traditional methods like email and phone will still have their place, but tools like Zoom or Slack can help take the place of face-to-face meetings, either as groups or one-on-one.
• Keep communications -- and channels -- clear. Different tools work best for different kinds of communications: using a synchronous system like Slack for all communication can lead to levels of distraction that make it difficult for team members to concentrate, while using email for even minor messages can lead to them feeling overwhelmed by their inboxes. And making sure team members have to sort through a minimum of irrelevant information is key regardless of what tool you're using.
• Vary the kinds of meetings you have. While traditional group meetings will remain common, being remote doesn't mean you should neglect things like one-on-one meetings, or fun events like happy hours and coffee breaks! Keeping these kinds of traditions alive in the remote context will allow your team to maintain similar connections to those they'd have if they were all in the same place.
• Find ways to replace serendipitous connections. Even traditional meetings should make time for people to check in with each other, as they'll have less opportunities to do so casually without a shared physical space.

All the rules you have for making meetings -- and teams -- work when you share a physical space still apply remotely. Set ground rules and norms, keep agendas, set action items, document your work, and hold team members accountable. And most important of all: check in with your team members! Make sure they can tell you what works and what doesn't, and adjust accordingly.