You enjoy the freedom of remote working. Your team enjoys the freedom of remote working. Everyone’s happy.

Except you’re constantly wondering if Sarah is actually doing any work, why nobody has replied to your Slack message yet, and whether scheduling another ‘quick catch-up’ will help improve your team’s morale.

Managing a remote team comes with its own unique challenges. When you can’t simply wander over to someone’s desk to check in, it’s easy to feel like you’ve lost sight of what everyone is doing – and, before you know it, you’re micromanaging your team and spending your day in back-to-back video calls.

But it doesn’t have to be this way. Remote management doesn’t have to mean constantly checking in and chasing everything down.

With a few simple habits and the right approach, you can keep your team productive, connected and happy without compromising your sanity.

Here’s how.

1. Resist the urge to micromanage

It can be difficult not to fall into the trap of micromanaging when you’re managing a remote team. After all, you can’t physically see what everyone’s up to like you can in a typical office set-up.

This can lead to worries over what exactly is getting done or whether certain people in the team are pulling their weight.

Before you know it, you’re asking for updates every hour, asking for a second meeting of the day before lunch and obsessing over who’s online on Teams.

I get it – remotely, silence can feel like inactivity.

But here’s the thing: being visible isn’t the same as being productive.

Shift your focus to what actually matters – are they meeting their deadlines, producing good work and communicating when they need support?

That doesn’t mean disappearing completely and hoping everything sorts itself out. Set clear expectations around deadlines, communication and availability, then give your team the space to get on with their work.

Trust is particularly important when you’re managing remotely. If your employees feel as though they’re under constant surveillance, they’re likely to feel stressed, and that’s not going to make anyone more productive.

Ultimately, you wouldn’t stand over someone’s desk watching them work in an office, so don’t start doing the remote equivalent just because you can’t see them. This isn’t Orwell’s 1984, and you’re not Big Brother!

Trust the individuals on your team unless they give you a reason not to.

2. Keep everyone on track

Remote working has the potential to become chaotic very quickly if it’s unclear what each person is responsible for – especially if the individuals on your team themselves haven’t a clue what’s going on.

That’s why clear communication is key.

Sure, clear communication is key within any work setting, but at least if you’re in an office, it’s considerably easier to have a quick chat about what needs doing next. Remotely, you can’t rely on those little conversations happening naturally.

Your priority should be making sure that everyone knows what they’re working on, what’s expected of them and when it needs to be done. A shared project management tool can be useful here, giving everyone a clear view of their tasks, deadlines and progress without the need for constant messages flying back and forth.

It’s also crucial that your team knows who to speak to when they have a question or hit a roadblock.

Remotely, a small misunderstanding can quickly turn into a day-long delay if nobody knows who is responsible for making the call.

Regular check-ins can help too – but keep them purposeful. A quick weekly catch-up to discuss priorities, progress and any other problems that need resolving should be enough for most teams.

The goal isn’t to know what everyone is doing every minute of the day. It’s to make sure nobody is sat at home wondering what they’re supposed to be doing next.

3. Over-explain

When people aren’t sitting next to each other or within the same building, you lose all the little bits of conversation that happen naturally.

You can’t rely on someone wandering over to your desk and asking, ‘Sorry, what did you mean by that?’ That’s why it pays to over-explain.

And no, this doesn’t mean bombarding your team with a 2,000-word essay every time you ask them to do something.

It simply means being a little more specific than you might be in person.

Something that seems completely obvious to you might not be obvious to someone reading your message from the other side of the country.

If you send a vague instruction such as ‘Can you update this and get back to me?’, you’re leaving plenty of room for interpretation. What needs updating? To what extent? When do you need it back?

Aside from being super clear on what needs doing, who needs to do it and when you need it done by, be specific with your instructions – if that means physically spelling some of the more difficult aspects of it out for your team, then so be it.

A couple of extra sentences at the beginning can save you a whole lot of back-and-forth later.

A tip here is to always read your message back from the other person’s perspective before you hit send. Ask yourself whether you’d understand the message and know exactly what to do afterwards.

If you wouldn’t, add a little more detail and save yourself the headache later.

4. Don’t underestimate the power of social connection

It’s easy to assume that people who choose to work remotely won’t want or miss the little social interactions of an office: a brief chat in the break room over coffee, laughing at the ridiculous jokes the guy from tech dishes out, or discussing upcoming weekend plans.

But working remotely doesn’t mean your team suddenly stops being human. And the desire to have a well-oiled remote workforce will materialise more easily if the people on that team feel connected to one another.

Don’t believe me? A study conducted by Microsoft Research studied software development teams working from home during COVID-19 and found that, in a survey of 608 developers, 74% reported missing social interactions with colleagues, while 51% reported that communicating with colleagues had become more difficult.

Those little moments of connection can be much harder to come by when everyone is working at home, so it’s worth making a conscious effort to create them.

That doesn’t mean turning every meeting into a team-building exercise. In fact, please don’t.

But dedicating a few minutes at the beginning of each meeting for a bit of non-work chat can contribute to morale more than you realise.

With morale in mind, why not also create a Slack or Teams channel where people can chat about anything other than work? Think questionable TV recommendations, weekend plans and, dare I say it, the odd meme or two.

And if it’s possible, why not get everyone together in person once a year? An event such as this can provide a reset and is a tangible way to show appreciation for your team. And who doesn’t like to feel appreciated?

Now, this isn’t going to be everyone’s cup of tea. And that’s OK. The key here is to offer a chance to socialise and connect, not force it.

After all, nobody wants to be forced into a mandatory Zoom bingo session at 4pm on a Monday afternoon.

5. Acceptance

Why do you think this piece is called ‘manage a remote team without losing your mind’?

While it’s subjective whether managing a remote team compared to an in-person one is more difficult, there’s no doubt it comes with its own distinct challenges, primarily around communication.

But while there are certain drawbacks to this set-up, remote teams have a number of fantastic strengths too, including:

• Greater flexibility
• Potentially better concentration
• More autonomy
• No commuting
• Lower business costs
• Access to talent outside your immediate area

The last one is my personal favourite – we live in a world now where technology can connect us to the perfect person to do the job we want, and it’s no issue that they live 1,500 miles away.

So, perhaps one of the most important things you can do is accept that a remote team won’t operate exactly like an office team would. And that’s OK.

Trying to recreate the office from behind a collection of laptop screens will only leave you frustrated. The key in all of this is finding a balance between letting go without letting people run amok.

Follow the tips here. They’re all important and, when combined, will help you manage a remote workforce to be reckoned with – without losing your mind in the process.