Remote Trust Fall: How to Build Trust Within Your Remote Teams

It's important to remember that even though we may be transitioning to a remote workforce, that building trust and culture are still as important (if not more important) than before. We need to make sure as managers that we're keeping our employees in the loop for changes that may be coming, allowing for collaboration and open conversations on how to help the business survive the pandemic, and allow for your employees to feel empowered in helping make the business succeed.

Allow for Open Suggestions

Now is not the time to be selective in who you're asking within the business on ways to improve your business. Allow new employees offer suggestions on how to improve a current process or recommend ideas on how to save money. Innovation is never built on neglecting to question key differentiators in the business.

While this helps your business, it also in turn helps employees feel their work and efforts are meaningful to the bottom line. By allowing for open suggestions, you're allowing them to consistently question their daily routine and suggest methods for improvement.

Create Methods for Getting to Know Your Team Beyond Their Professional Role

This is an especially important part of gaining trust with your remote team. Think creatively to allow for ice breakers in getting to know your team beyond their job responsibilities. Find ways to lean in to common interests or hobbies within your team through games, meetings, mentoring opportunities, and other activities like book clubs,

Some ideas for getting to know who your employees are as individuals are to ask more personal questions like: "Who and what inspired you to pursue a career in this field? Did you always think you'd end up in this type of role or was it something you learned along the way? Do you have pets / what are their names? What is your weirdest habit? How would you spend a million dollars in 24 hours? If you could master a new skill in 20 minutes, what would you attempt to master first?" While these may seem silly to ask in a business, they offer clues on what kind of things are important to your employees on a more personal level!

Try implementing break times throughout the day to discuss current events or topics of common interest for a set amount of time to get your team thinking critically in other areas of their lives. If that seems too much and many of your employees have pets, try involving them in company meetings or offer weekly show-and-tell meetings to allow for a less stressful and fun environment to get to know each other in! Even offering welcome emails and weekly newsletters to employees can highlight new employees, team milestones achieved, and more!

Engage Often & Ask for Feedback

Engaging with your team might be something done quarterly but try to get to know more about their favorite parts of the projects they're currently working on are and how they might be able to improve existing project procedures. Asking for feedback is something that many micro-managers never dare to do, but it's important to consider what YOU as a manager can do better to help motivate and retain your employees in the long term! Through asking what an employee's biggest challenges faced in a project, what kind of technologies they think would help streamline current processes, and how you can better perform in your own role, you'll be able to build trust and more importantly respect amongst your employees.

Interested in Working with an Agency to Help Build Trust with Your Remote Team?

Thinking about working with an agency to ensure you're finding top talent that will fit within your current company culture? We're here to help! We offer a variety of staffing services to companies in the Information Technology, Professional and Engineering industries across the United States. Send an email to info@mCubedStaffing.com to hear more about how we can help you transform your workforce!