6 Simple Tips for Managing Dedicated Teams
Modern technology grants us the freedom of choice. No longer you’re limited by your location; now you can find job or employees in any part of the world. What’s more, technological advancement gave a boost to a new wave of employment for the people who want to combine their work and traveling; they are called digital nomads. And nowadays companies are free to hire dedicated resources that will work solely on their project from any convenient country (in terms of rates and taxes).
It sounds really cool, but employers have to adapt to the novelties since the era of new opportunities imposes new challenges. And one of those difficulties is the issue of managing remote workers and teams. So, let’s have a look at the rules every smart employer should know!
1.Hire the right people
The process of managing starts with hiring. It goes without saying that hiring programmers for remote work is twice as difficult as hiring a member of the in-house team. Besides technical background and needed experience recruiters also pay a lot of attention to soft skill and traits of character. Despite the fact, that the majority of employers emphasize the importance of being a team player, but in this case do not overestimate this trait. Remote workers must be self-disciplined and independent so that the employer wouldn’t have to monitor their performance 24/7.
- Explain clearly
Choosing like-minded people for any team is crucial but don’t forget that people cannot read your mind and neither can you. Explain the goals you set for your project in the smallest details. Meet the storm of questions with patience, don’t hesitate to explain your vision several times to be sure each member shares your opinion and understands what should be done to achieve it. What’s more, encourage questions. If people ask you about your project, it means they are interested in working on it.
- Give initial feedback
If you hire dedicated developers, agree with them to give regular feedback on their work. On the one hand, it increases your scope of work, but on the other hand, monitoring performance allows you to notice if something goes wrong in the early stages. If you find any drawbacks, notify your team immediately because it’ll help you to correct mistakes before they become unavoidable.
- Choose communication channels
You’ll be spoilt by choice of all the possible communication tools you can use with your dedicated team – video calls, chats, messengers, etc. Nevertheless, choose the main one that is convenient for the whole team. In this way, you’ll be sure everybody gets your message just in case you have something urgent to say (e.g., updates, unpredicted changes). The most important things should be presented in written form anyway. Later, when your remote workers read it, it’s necessary to conduct video calls to agree on the details and the ways of development.
- Make communication rapid and transparent
Forge the bond of trust with your dedicated team and never conceal the information concerning the project. Mind that you cannot achieve good results without trust relations. Pay attention to their problems and help them to solve these issues. Sometimes all you need to do is to give your answer as soon as possible. You even might want to set a kind of deadline to reply on time. Make a rule that both parties shouldn’t wait for the answer more than one day.
- Manage wisely
If you make your remote dedicated team to report you on every little thing, they won’t have enough time for their direct responsibilities. Define crucial moments in the project completion and the scope of work they have to do by that time. Let’s face the truth, deadlines speed up work while regular but not annoying reporting allows preventing serious errors.
As you can see, managing dedicated offshore teams has some peculiarities but following these six simple rules opens your way to successful and mutually-beneficial cooperation on the international level.
Julia Kravchenko
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- 6 Simple Tips for Managing Dedicated Teams - December 28, 2017