For supervisors Lead your team
Lead from anywhere with these 5 strategies
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Adapt your management practices
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Set standard tools for your team to use
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Build and maintain trust
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Make virtual space for social connection
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Encourage breaks
1. Adapt your management practices
Professional development
Each 10-minute video covers an essential topic for supervising remote teams:
- Managing remote workers
- Leading virtual meetings
- Evaluating remote workers' performance
To watch, login to myUK, click myUK Learning, and use the Find Learning tile to search for "Remote Work Series".
2. Set standard tools for your team to use
Keep your team aligned and keep information easily accessible to all by designating set tools for set purposes.
Use the tools available to you from the university
Microsoft Office 365
A variety of applications for most of your productivity and collaboration needs.
Zoom
Video conferencing for large groups or extended meetings. Zoom easily integrates into your Microsoft 365 Exchange email.
Choose and communicate your team's go-to tools
Among Zoom and the Microsoft 365 apps, there are many options for working together. In addition to the university-licensed apps on this list, your team might also rely on proprietary software for job-specific tasks.
Project collaboration
Consider Microsoft Teams or SharePoint
File storage and sharing
Consider Microsoft Teams, Outlook email or OneDrive
Meetings: video and audio conferencing
Consider Zoom or Microsoft Teams
3. Build and maintain trust
Trust is a must have for effective work, and your team is counting on you to drive trust when working apart may challenge it.
Recognize great work
In addition to you, as a leader, publicly praising and acknowledging your employees for their great work, encourage your team to also recognize their colleagues. Consider a Teams channel for recognition.
Choose to give trust
Yes, hold employees accountable. However, the more we “keep tabs” on our employees, the less likely they are to feel like we trust them to do the work they were hired to do.
Share information broadly
Ongoing, open and authentic communication is key to building trust. This includes being honest about a situation, even when it’s difficult news to share.
Show vulnerability
Acknowledge the things you do not know and ask for help from colleagues instead of just telling them what they need to do.
Resources
Intentionally build relationships
Studies show those who connect with others and help them with their projects not only earned the respect and trust of their peers, but were also more productive themselves.
4. Make virtual space for social connection
Find low-effort, high-payoff practices to embed in (almost) everything you do as a team to keep everyone connected.
Pre-meeting time
GOOD FOR: ZOOM
If you’re hosting, open the “meeting room” 10-15 minutes early. This encourages informal conversation and connection and provides either introduction or catch up time.
Question of the week
GOOD FOR: ZOOM AND TEAMS
Kick off your all-team meetings with fun conversation starters like this:
- What was a win from last week?
- What was your first job?
- What are you reading right now?
- What’s a song you can’t stand?
Virtual backgrounds
GOOD FOR: ZOOM AND TEAMS
Introduce this feature prior to a team meeting by asking employees to choose a virtual background that represents their response to a prompt like this:
- Your favorite food
- A childhood photo
- Something that makes you happy
- Where you wish you could be on vacation
Teams channels
GOOD FOR: TEAMS
This provides a space for ongoing, positive conversations and photos, so consider the interests across your team and create channels such as these:
- Pets
- Kids and family activities
- Hiking
- Peer-to-peer recognition
5. Encourage breaks
This is important for all employees, but for non-exempt (hourly) employees, you need to ensure you both follow state law.
Rules for breaks, lunch and overtime
You and your hourly employees must be aware that rules from our state's wage and hour laws still apply, whether working on-site or remotely.
These rules as outlined by Kentucky state law include:
- Pay at time-and-one-half for any hours worked above 40 in one workweek.
- 15-minute breaks for each four-hour period worked.
- Meal breaks of 30 minutes for each workday over five hours long.
- Complete relief from work duties during breaks and lunches.