Do my team members even like me?
This is a frequent question for most entrepreneurs and business owners in every industry, especially in Property Management Businesses when you’re leading a diverse team with local and remote employees.
The truth is that you are the only one who can find out the answer to that question. Sometimes, even at the office with everyone around you, sharing desks and coffee breaks, it’s really hard to get to know each other. Now, imagine how it is with remote team members.
The way you interact with your colleagues when you are in the office is not the same as when interacting with them online.
– Keep reading to check the 9 tips to create engagement with your remote team members that we prepared for you –
We call them Remote Team Members instead of Virtual Assistants for a very good reason; they’re not virtual or just assistants. They are actual team members of your organization that just happen to be located somewhere else.
That’s why we need to reinvent ourselves or change the game rules to adapt our business needs to our team members’ goals.
First and most important, you must adapt your leadership style when managing a remote team. Their surroundings and context may affect their performance, ability to focus, and interaction. This can even lead them to feel lonely and start working on autopilot mode.
As mentioned in this year’s Buffer State Of Remote Study; Loneliness has been of the top 3 struggles for RTMs since 2018.
These results are nothing more than the facts you need to stay alert about the consequences that a demotivated team member can bring to your business.
Those silent consequences can be; a lack of productivity, overall stress in your team, more room for mistakes, and a higher acquisition cost.
A study made by Shiftboard shows that “Lack of organizational agility prevents companies from adapting to new threats, and disengaged workers cost the U.S. economy up to $600 billion a year in lost productivity.”
We know some of these numbers and data can look overwhelming and even confusing, but the solution it’s easy.
To create engagement with your remote team members you need to ask yourself “Do I really know my team?” instead of “Do they really like me?”.
There are many relationship-building opportunities that you may take advantage of during the day with your team, like; small talks where you ask them about their families, personal motivations, hobbies, or even their pet names or favorite meals.
Humanize yourself as a leader.
Believe it or not, most of your team members need a little reminder about how important their role and presence are, so they can truly care about the company’s success.
We have the misconception that just because we schedule a lot of work-related meetings during the week, we are already engaging with our team members.
A report on a project is not relationship-building.
We get it, it can be more of what we’ve always heard about showing empathy and being there for them. But that can be hard to truly accomplish while you’re trying to achieve your goals and escalate your company.
However, the secret is that their career goals can be and should be aligned with your business goals. So, use that opportunity to build rapport and do regular check-ins (at least once in a week).
To provide some clarity about how to create engagement with your remote team members, check the following list of ideas:
Try to create personal conversations about their lives and passions. You can also designate one day of the week to have a zero work-related meeting with your team to just hang out.
It’s not rocket science, you can dedicate 1 hour every Friday to run a fun meeting, here are some ideas from teambuiling.com
Invest in good communication platforms like slack, Microsoft teams, zoom, etc
These can be personal achievements that they feel comfortable sharing with the rest of the team or internal contests.
This is a key point that will help you and them build engagement with each other as they get to know better their processes and duties so it can be taken into consideration for future projects.
This is a great way to keep them connected and make them feel heard. You can do it once every two weeks to start, for example
Avoid micromanaging.
So they don’t feel left out. You should be constant when engaging with them, otherwise, you’ll get a contradictory effect.
We all have issues, be patient and they will show gratitude by doing an excellent job.
These activities and small changes on a daily basis will be noticed, and will bring significant benefits to your company, starting with;
- Employee Loyalty
- More productivity
- Less stress
- Effectiveness with project development
- Happier Staff = Happier clients
- More Profit
If you’d like to get some guidance on how to create engagement with your remote team members, do not hesitate to reach out!
You can also get support and engage with like-minded property managers on our dedicated FB group.
