How to align remote teams with Brand Goals

Before the pandemic, almost 60% of companies were skeptical about remote work. Employees were allowed to work from home occasionally. But now, most tech leaders are switching to remote work & opting for remote teams with 81% reporting that Covid-19 has changed their perspective on the remote work culture. Remote work has concerns in terms of impaired communication, lack of employee engagement, and lack of direction while demanding strategies should things go south, trust in your team to get the work done. However, businesses could make sure that the remote teams are in alignment with the organization to make things easier at both ends.

Reason to align remote teams with organizational goals is important.

Making sure your employees understand and meet the organization’s required goals where the goals are also set to mutually benefit both the company and its employees ensures a reliable working system. This helps the employees work towards the common goal who understands that the businesses goals and successes are not any different from theirs. According to Harvard Business Review, 95% of employees are unaware of their company’s goals and others do not know of ways to achieve their company’s intransigent goals. Most employees felt that their upper management does not clearly clarify the objectives to them. Having said that, businesses still need to communicate their goals to their workforce to make sure everyone is on the same page.

Set S.M.A.R.T Goals

SMART stands for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Time-bound. Let’s look at each of these aspects individually.

• Specific: You should be particular about the exact result you want your workforce to achieve. For example, XYZ is responsible for bringing $20,000 in sales by the end of the first quarter.
• Measurable: You should be able to monitor whether your employees have reached their goals. There must be some defined metric followed to measure the progress towards the attainment of a goal. For example, Team A will increase traffic to ‘ABCcompany.com’ by 40% by the end of the first quarter.
• Achievable: Before setting a goal it is important to make sure the goal is attainable and is not unreasonable. Past performances of employees must be kept in mind before setting the goals. For example, ABC will secure 10 new clients for Company X by the end of the first quarter. If ABC had secured only 3 clients per quarter, then this goal might not be possible to achieve.
• Relevant: Does the goal align with the company requirements over a given time period? For example, 4 team outings need to be planned for the first quarter. If nurturing company culture is not the need of the hour for the first quarter, then this goal might not be relevant.
• Time-bound: The purpose is to create urgency. A clearly defined time limit, including a starting date and a target date, can be set in order to determine whether the goal has been achieved. For example, the HR team has to hire 25 candidates by the end of the first quarter.

2. Set Clear Expectations

In-house teams work in shared spaces and have a lot of chances to have conversations about the goals of the company as in-person meetings are often conducted. But remote teams are more focused on work completion on a daily basis. Day-to-day work is communicated by their team leaders and they have fewer chances to talk about the vision of the company. Try setting clear targets on what to achieve so that employees may schedule their tasks well in advance. This will give them a clear view of the big picture and how their work is going to contribute to it.

3. Regular Communication With Employees

While managing remote teams, there are a lot of hurdles like time zone differences, less communication, lack of engagement, etc. To overcome these hurdles, businesses have a lot of tech tools to align remote teams. They include project management tools, communication tools, time zone calculators, and more. Whenever a meeting is scheduled, team members may join in before a few minutes to have casual conversations. This can keep your employees engaged, function normally and boost productivity.

4. Encourage Personal Development

To have more engagement at the workplace, a business must clearly care about its employees’ personal development. When employees get an appreciation for their work, it leads to higher performance which increases the business profit. This in turn contributes to a healthy work culture. To set high standards and goals, employees must possess all essential skills to achieve them. Encourage the employees to upscale their skills and build strategies to accomplish the goals. Businesses must take initiative by organizing technical workshops and personality development programs for employees to improve their skills.

5. Review and Adjust Your Goals

Just setting great goals and forgetting about them wouldn’t help. You need to review the plans you made and evaluate the progress of your organization. It is important to build a tracking system to monitor how far we are from our goals. Look into the past to find out what has or has not worked for your business. Based on that, update your action plans. Businesses need to regularly evaluate their resources like capital, knowledge, and skills and make sure they are enough to help them achieve their goals. Finally, evaluate your goals to ensure they are still attainable given the current situations. If your goals seem out of the realm of possibility, feel free to readjust your goals and strategies needed to achieve them.

Final Thoughts

As the world has shifted to the remote work culture, it is high time for businesses to align remote teams by setting goals that will give them a clear direction and keep them focused. They must make the team members realize their worth and how their performance directly contributes to the organization’s success. The goals of the company must be clearly communicated to all the employees. Businesses should make sure the goals set are achievable and all the resources and skills required to achieve these goals are available to the workers. Employees must be encouraged to upskill themselves and strive hard to work towards the vision of the company. In case the goals become impractical due to unavoidable situations, never shy away from reviewing and modifying the goals.

Empower your remote hiring process with Centizen Talent Hub.