Running remotely is done well when employees take the added freedom they’re given and respond with a team mentality and purpose alignment. When this happens, they pull forward together by vision, without having to be pushed along by flogging away at a job every day.
We’ve found that one important tool for encouraging this environment remotely is transparency in the sharing of goals and expectations.
At the beginning of each day, week, and month we come together and set the goals each of us wants to reach by the end of that day, week, or month. We also set “stretch goals” as aspirational challenges we put forward for ourselves. They can’t be vague, talking about “working on” this or that. They must be specific, to create a form of accountability that each person defines for themselves and articulates for the group.
Importantly, those goals are not for the immediately supervisor, they’re for everyone. When you speak your goal into a room of peers in this way – even a virtual room – they hear your goals with you and pull with you to meet them. This practice has helped us create our team-based, outcome-oriented culture.
However, in order for this kind of transparency to work, it must be framed in a positive, constructive way. Especially for remote workers it’s critical. If left on their own, lack of teamwork can lead to frustration and doing things other than focusing on their project.
So we celebrate wins and are encouraging when there are setbacks. We’ve had long slogs before, where program or process development seemed to take forever. Even then, being supportive of the process and providing suggestions for the person is important to let them know we’re behind them.
Finally, goals start with concrete outcomes, but I also encourage them to frame their goals in terms of how those outcomes relate to the overall good for each other.
Here’s a typical exchange:
- “My goal is to get this front end page development completed by Thursday so our backend folks can get in there and make the magic happen!”
- “Thanks! Your pages are beautiful. Love the design update on the biometrics home page, btw.”
- “This is awesome guys, bc we’ve been asked for these updates for next year, and this will allow us to get it to them ahead of schedule. Score!
In the end, the expectation created is multi-level and so is the support. Everyone knows what you’ll produce, how it fits into the goals of the others who touch this part of the process, and how that affects everyone. In our group, we find that this organic peer-to-peer accountability gives a pride in accomplishment and an internal motivation to contribute.
