What are some effective ways to motivate remote teams?

These goals are best created together. Motivation is not a one-way street. If you think you know what motivates team members, you probably don't. The more input you get; the more success you will see and reach.

As a leader, you've likely been conditioned to be the driver of setting and communicating your team's goals. I'd recommend shifting your mindset so that your team feels more ownership over how they do their work and progress. Instead of providing a solid and complete set of goals, consider the idea of co-creation. Deliberately ask your team to help you finalize your flight plan so that they feel more engaged and play a bigger role in the evolution of your company. You might ask: How does our work connect to the overall mission of the department/organization? What obstacles are we facing? And how can we overcome them? Is there anything we should discontinue doing? What have I left unsaid or not taken into account here?

Challenge with remote work is that people are mostly working in silos with limited team interaction. This brings two challenges, they don't know how they are performing, but at the same time they are becoming more sensitive to feedbacks. So it's important to give feedback on regular basis while making sure that it's constructive, relevant and done respectfully.

Set up platforms for giving feedback and reflecting on accomplished work. Following recurring meetings might be a good start: - One-on-ones with direct reports - focus on individual performance - Retrospectives after reaching significant milestones - focus mostly on team performance and lessons learned - Public channel for recognition of work well done - focus on the outstanding performance of teams or individuals None of these are unique to remote environments, but in the remote environment, it is necessary to compensate for fewer interpersonal interactions by introducing dedicated time for giving and receiving feedback.

Six ways to reward team members: 1) Say thank you, sincerely and specifically. 2) Let your senior leaders know about the great thing your employee did. Let the employee know you told the higher-ups about their effort & accomplishment. Even better, bring them along to the conversation where you tell an exec about their triumph. 3) Give them the latitude, flexibility, visibility and support they need to do their job. 4) Advocate for them when they deserve a pay adjustment, title change or redefinition of their role. 5) Give your team member an opportunity to showcase their subject matter knowledge and general awesomeness in a meeting (or better yet, a presentation) with senior management. 6) Ask them what they need, and give it to them!

This has helped me to build high-performing teams. Ensure to recognize your teammates during regular team events, send a recognition note to your company's internal rewards systems, and organize events just to talk about the success stories. As a leader, it is important that you take ownership to make your teammate's contributions visible amongst their peers.

One element that I think many folks forget is authenticity. We know we’re not all perfect, so let’s be open, honest and authentic with each other, both in person and virtually. Transparency allows your team and colleagues a chance to get to know the real you, and to engage without the pressure to impress. True leaders are inspirational, they don’t demand respect, respect is earned. And one way I believe this can be done is by being authentic.

My team consists of 15 sales reps across 5 states. Like most remote teams, we have a weekly call that requires us to report numbers and discuss future plans. These meetings alone don’t foster a great sense of belonging or connection. Our boss introduced a new method - that was initially met with resistance - which involved us breaking out into virtual rooms and conducting sales activities together. It was super awkward at first having someone watch me in real time and critiquing me. But in the end it’s been the greatest source of collaboration and team building compared to any other virtual meetings. We’re also way more open to talking about our personal lives and other aspects of our work.

The team overall atmosphere and quality of work is highly impacted by the underlying values. Promoting the "fail as-soon-as-possible" principle as in innovation, an error discovered later is more expensive and not making errors is simply impossible (when actively working). Foster team values such as: trust, sense of responsibility, mutual support, honesty, sincerity, praising behaviours that express them in daily activity, while punishing failing to meet such values. Team members that aren't aligning to the values shouldn't be hired and should be fired if already present in the team.

Starting each meeting with a check-in is a great way to ensure that your team is ready to tackle the challenges of the week as well as give a clear demonstration that you as the leader are focusing on the whole person.