Since the COVID-19 pandemic, the percentage of remote-working employees has increased drastically. That’s why, as a successful leader, it’s essential to know how to build trust in a remote work environment.
With a bit of work, you can overcome the lack of personal interaction between team members and build trust. You just need to step back and avoid micromanagement while maintaining communication.
In this article, you’ll learn everything you need about trust in a remote work environment and how to build it. So, keep scrolling.
9 Tips For Building Trust In A Remote Work Environment
Trust in the workplace usually comes spontaneously, resulting from daily intercommunication between employees. Yet, in remote teams, building trust may need different approaches and various strategies.
Typically, it’s hard to be sure your employees can meet deadlines while not physically seeing them work. At the same time, all team members should be on the same page and work towards the same goals.
That’s why trust in remote workplaces matters.
According to a Harvard Business School study, employees with leadership trust are 106% more energized at work and 76% more engaged.
So, whether you’re looking to improve your existing tactics with your remote team or start fresh, the following nine tips are for you.
#1. Begin With Setting Clear Expectations
First and most importantly, you need to set clear and precise guidelines for what you’re expecting from your team.
Employees should know your expectations on working schedules, communication, evaluation, etc.
In a real-life work environment, this usually happens effortlessly. In offices, for example, an employee getting an answer to a question is just a chair spin away.
Contrarily, remote teams communicate differently through scheduled virtual meetings or random Slack chats. Oftentimes, these methods lack the body language needed to provide context and tone.
By setting general expectations, you clarify the level of contact needed while empowering employees to control their schedules.
Keep in mind that the following examples may vary according to each team leader’s preferences. So, take a look.
- Sharing information over public communication channels rather than direct messaging
- Calling for a meeting instead of sending a voicemail
- Working eight hours a day, not necessarily from nine to five
- Specifying a couple of hours overlap with a specific time zone (for overseas employees)
- Scheduling regular weekly meetings
#2. Be Transparent And Available
Sometimes it can be hard to share company information through virtual meetings.
What’s more, remote employees can feel isolated. Yet, the lack of transparency may obstruct the process of building trust.
As a remote team leader, being honest is one of the best things to do to build trust.
Moreover, it’s also essential to show them that you’re always available to discuss any concerns. Thus, successful leaders recommend having regular check-ins with team members.
By doing so, you can establish a strong foundation for working relationships and encourage your team members to follow your lead.
#3. Organize Regular Meetings
Without regular meetings, employees may become confused about what to do or who to talk to regarding a certain matter.
Not only do those meetings provide insight into the progress of projects, but they also promote accountability and stimulate motivation.
That said, the frequency and duration of meetings don’t have an exact rule. Instead, they depend on the nature and rate of the team’s work.
For example, some teams work best with quick daily meetings, especially when handling rapidly changing projects. On the other hand, teams working on projects with longer cycles may not need to hold meetings more than once a week.
#4. Establish Shared Goals And Objectives
Just like it’s vital to set clear expectations for team members, it’s also important to establish goals and objectives for each project.
Moreover, what should matter isn’t each person’s output, but the overall outcome.
Generally, when you set specific goals and track the progress of each one, you’re creating a positive work environment. That’s because by doing so, employees are able to witness how their efforts contribute toward the final goal.
Therefore, they become more inspired to carry on.
In such an environment, employees know exactly what their roles are and consequently have mutual trust in each other. Without this trust, team members can’t be sure whether everyone is doing their part.
Various formats can help you with implementing this step, one of which is SMART goals.
This strategy uses a set of criteria to define and attain objectives within a specific timeframe, which are:
- Specific: A specific goal defines what each team member needs to accomplish and exactly how to do so.
- Measurable: Quantifying the goal makes it measurable, so progress becomes easier to track.
- Achievable: Obviously, a set goal should be realistic to avoid frustration.
- Relevant: Knowing why you set a certain goal is vital because it has to be relevant to the big picture.
- Time-bound: Time is key, and knowing when to reach the set goal is critical for everyone to stay on track.
#5. Avoid Micromanaging
As a successful team leader, it’s rather important to avoid micromanagement strategies. Sometimes it can be hard to step away from monitoring daily activities.
Nevertheless, with time you find that focusing on the results is what truly matters.
Giving your team members the freedom to make decisions provides them with a sense of trust and independence.
Here are some micromanaging traits to avoid:
- Insisting on taking part in any email sent
- Being uncertain when assigning a vital task to a team member
- Having too many one-on-one meetings
- Feeling stressed and burned out
- Questioning your team’s commitment to work even when delivering excellent output
#6. Motivate Employees And Celebrate Successes
By focusing on how well your team collaborates, you motivate each member and help create mutual trust.
Moreover, keeping an eye on employees’ performance and tracking their progress is also critical.
Without informing your team members of their work results, they might not work to seek collaboration. Consequently, they become less inclined to trust each other.
Here are a few examples of events to celebrate, given that they result from team members working together:
- A milestone reached within the timeframe
- Increased work output
- Positive feedback from clients or other departments
- A spike in business sales
#7. Provide Team Collaboration Tools
In remote work environments, employees rely solely on online team collaboration tools. Ideally, the more effectively you implement and use such tools, the fewer meetings your team needs.
Unfortunately, when you don’t define these types of platforms, employees may resort to using whatever they’re familiar with.
As a result, this can lead to miscommunicating as well as unintentionally leaving some team members out.
So, if you’re confused about what collaboration tools to use, here are a few suggestions:
- Video Conference Software (Zoom, Skype, Webex Meetings, and Microsoft Teams)
- File Sharing Apps (Google Drive, Microsoft OneDrive, DropBox Business)
- Team Chat Tools (Slack, Discord, RocketChat, ClickUp)
- Project Management Software (ClickUp, Hive, Asana, Nifty)
#8. Prioritize Employees’ Wellbeing
Although mostly overlooked, supporting the well-being of your team members is key to building trust.
Caring about how they feel and helping them maintain a healthy balance between work and life shows them that you’re supportive.
When working remotely, the lines between work and personal life become blurred.
So, by giving your employees the freedom to control how things go, you empower them to foster strategies that work best.
Generally, people working remotely usually have non-work-related stuff to do during their day.
That’s why it’s important to be a compassionate and flexible leader as long as you get satisfying work output.
Check out a few ideas to help you accomplish this step:
- Provide resources to promote employees’ health and wellbeing
- Create a backup grid to specify who to reach out to when a specific member is unavailable
- Minimize after-hours communications except in case of emergencies
- Encourage employees to take advantage of their yearly time-off
- Allow the option for employees to adjust their work schedules if it intersects with their personal lives
#9. Encourage Social Relationships
Team collaboration tools aren’t just for professional use. You can also use them to create connections between team members.
When team members get to know each other better, their trust grows significantly.
Unfortunately, remote teams don’t get the same chance to bond and have social relationships as office workers. That’s why it’s a good idea to promote such things and plan team bonding activities.
So, rather than remaining inside separate bubbles, make an effort and use a few strategies to create personal connections.
Here are a few ideas:
- Spend the first twenty minutes of each meeting playing a game (like charades, Heads Up, or two truths and a lie)
- Organize virtual coffee chats to talk about everyday life
- Create groups for team members with shared hobbies or interests
- Have a show-and-tell session
- Organize regular in-person get-togethers
A Final Thought
To build trust in a remote work environment, you must have patience and follow successful strategies.
It can be a slow process. However, it’s worth the effort.
Focus on enhancing communication and empowering your team members to further motivate them. Moreover, try to prioritize their well-being and encourage the creation of social connections.
With the help of the right tools, you can see results in no time.
Just remember to avoid micromanaging and pay more attention to the actual results.
