It is said that female leaders are better at managing remote team collaboration. If you happen to be leading a digital remote team like us here at Chykalophia, give this article a read!
While the number of remote workers has decreased from its peak between 2020-2021, still more than half of the U.S. workforce can now work remotely from home. What a great time for female leaders! Now you can balance your professional and personal lives in a better way. One challenge remains, though: how do you maintain your remote team collaboration?
During the start of the pandemic, many companies weren’t ready for the shift to remote work. Communication became such a hassle and project distribution and progress weren’t monitored. This drives companies to return to working on-site, even though more and more workers have even stated they prefer remote, with a 24% increase from 2021.
So, what to do?
With a female leader and more than a combined 20 years of remote working experience, the Chykalophia team has learned so many lessons about remote team collaboration and communication. And we’re proud to say we now have the upper hand in this situation!
Are female leaders better in organizing remote team collaboration?
A Forbes article mentions that female leaders in remote teams are more successful. This is because female leadership generally takes a more ‘humanistic’ approach that focuses on soft skills and behaviors — something we totally agree with.
We believe hard skills for design, development, and others are easy to teach and obtain. Soft skills, on the other hand, come naturally from within. So do core vision and values.
As a woman-owned company (we’re WBENC-certified, by the way), we always strive to find team members that align with the company’s values and are eager to improve and learn from our mistakes. It’s okay to work in our own styles, as long as deadlines are met, communication is smooth, and collaboration runs in a supportive way.
How do we do it, you ask? Here you go, five tips to maintain team collaboration, especially for female leaders in remote teams.
How do you build relationships with remote teams?
For the past ten years, we have tried a myriad of processes and tools, trying to build a healthy remote workplace. After lots of trials and errors, here are our five keys to keep our remote team collaboration seamless and fun.
1. Clear processes & documentation
Take time to document all work processes, expectations, and KPIs. This will save a lot of time and effort in the future – onboarding becomes more seamless, project delegation easier, and communication more effective.
In general, teamwork becomes more efficient, which can help increase productivity and job satisfaction.
2. Utilize tools
Beyond the widely-used Zoom and Slack, more and more tools are being created and launched to support remote and online working. Here are the tools we utilize to make remote work more effective, and fun!
- Notion. For documents and all things are written.
- Plutio. This is the project management tool we use. It’s easy to delegate work, create sub-tasks and track the man-hour.
- Rocket Chat. All work-related chat is done on this platform to draw the line between work and personal life. Work-life balance for the win!
- Gtmhub. We use this tool to set and track personal, group, and company KPIs or OKRs.
- Google Meet. Many of our clients use the good ol’ Gmeet, so we rely on it to communicate and catch up with them.
3. Continuous feedback & review
Conducting one-on-one quarter reviews and pulse surveys regularly can help understand employee sentiment, satisfaction, and overall engagement and experience. For bigger companies, investing in a 360 review tool can also be an excellent way to help retain the best talents.
4. Turn on the cameras 📸
Don’t forget that we are a group of people working together, not some robots that only take commands. So, make sure to have regular video calls, with the camera turned on, to have “direct” communications. At Chykalophia, we have brief stand-up meetings daily to update our progress and keep everyone in the loop. We also have weekly meetings with the whole company for work updates. Plus for fun!
5. Make sure to have fun
Yup, we love having fun! — who doesn’t, right? Make some time at the less busy time of the week or month to have team-building activities.
Be it quiz time, movie night, charades, or a book club, these activities can help boost teamwork and improve employee engagement. And, oh, if you ask what we do, we love playing online games together.
Remote working might be preferred, but it’s not mandatory
We understand that remote working has its challenges, but we can make the best of it with these tips. And it’s clear that it’s not for every business. Our company is able to pull off this remote working arrangement due to the nature of the services we provide.
For you, female leaders in remote teams, try these five tips and see how you can maintain and even improve your remote team collaboration.
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