As the COVID-19 crisis impacts people around the world, and as we see our governments take unprecedented measures to contain the virus and flatten the curve, many business leaders have quickly found themselves managing entirely remote teams. For some, this may be a new and unfamiliar experience, and you’re learning as you go how to lead your team from afar.

At Entando, we are fortunate to have a team that already largely works remotely, spanning across 9 international time zones. So we have some experience in this area. And this current crisis is causing us to be even more intentional in our remote leadership.

Here are 3 tips for managing remote teams during COVID-19 and beyond.

1. Keep a clear schedule.

While your team isn’t able to meet and work together in person, it’s important to keep a sense of rhythm and structure to your workweek. So keep a clear and regular schedule with your team, including weekly or even daily standup meetings to update each other on progress and clarify goals. Use regular meetings to manage deadlines and offer direction on what the team should be focusing on.

You’ll want teams that work closely together to meet more often, while also calling for occasional larger meetings of departments (or even the entire organization, if your company is small enough).

2. Make ongoing communication easy.

A huge part of maintaining clarity is keeping lines of communication open. And when you’re working remotely and unable to walk down the hall to knock on an office door, that means you’ll need to be intentional about setting up systems that allow for quick and easy communication across teams, as well as up and down the org chart.

There are a number of different tools, many of them free (or with free versions), that help your business keep lines of communication open between team members. We utilize tools like Slack and WhatsApp for quick communication, along with BlueJeans for video conferencing. Leveraging these communication channels enables us to make constant communication a part of our company culture.

We also use tools like Trello to manage the progress of given tasks, setting deadlines and sharing working documents.

A commitment to ongoing and clear communication will keep everyone on the same page, and will keep you from letting things slip through the cracks in certain areas while unnecessarily duplicating effort in others. It will also just ensure that morale is staying high. Your employees will work better if they feel seen, heard, and cared for. 

3. Set clear goals.

Flexibility is a huge benefit of working remotely--particularly during times when a stay-at-home order isn’t in effect. By working from home, many of our employees are able to better balance their workload with their family schedules and responsibilities. And we want to afford them that flexibility.

However, we also know that we need to work hard in order to progress forward. But we don’t accomplish that simply by keeping close track of how many hours our employees work. We do it by pushing our teams toward clearly defined company-wide and departmental goals. We recommend setting specific goals that you can continue to track with your team. Allow your employees to manage their time while you manage the team’s goals.

And as you cast vision, you should include a mix of short term and mid range goals. For example, you may have a quarterly goal to launch a new project, whether it's a new product, a new version of your software, or a fresh website. You will also need to set monthly and/or weekly benchmarks to ensure that your team is advancing toward that goal.

Clearly defining the next step forward will help your team track progress and continue moving the ball down the field.

We’re here to help your business thrive.

We hope that you are staying safe during this time, and we want you to know that we’re here to help your business thrive.

While the COVID-19 pandemic has hit many of us hard, we believe that the businesses that will continue to thrive through this crisis are the ones that rise to the unique opportunities presenting themselves during this time--businesses that provide modern online experiences that meet their customers’ current needs in intuitive and innovative ways.

That’s what we’re here to help you do with a platform that helps you get your ideas to market faster. Entando is the leading micro frontend platform for building modern web apps on Kubernetes.

On Entando, vertical teams using micro frontends deployed on Kubernetes have the freedom to update features without affecting other parts of your site. This end-to-end autonomy empowers you to innovate more quickly, driving better UX. Micro frontends are developed using customized blueprints, decreasing development time and increasing standardization.

Entando is fully open source with available enterprise support. Begin developing on the platform today, and get a quote to see how we can help you build better apps, websites, and portals--faster.