TALENT DEVELOPMENT: MANAGING TEAMS REMOTELY AND ONLINE

Mastering talent development and learning to remotely management teams online doesn’t have to be as difficult and time-consuming as you might suspect at first. But learning to be an effective leader does require you to consider how paradigms are shifting in the wake of a growing move to hybrid, virtual and remote workplace setups. Needless to say, many of the skills and operating setups that worked well in the past could use an overhaul as you look to re-engineer talent development and team management strategies for the future. And, of course, that means having to rethink everything from how you train and upskill your workforce to how you provide new mentoring and schedule solutions for employees. Some brief summaries of how things are changing can be found below.

Topic: How to Make Employees Feel Connected While Working Remotely

Scenario: Morale and productivity can take a real hit when employees – now working remotely – don’t get enough face to face time with other team members and supervisors. Business leaders need to find more ways to create a sense of shared connection.

Insight: From building more working committees to setting up digital meet-ups, employee socials, virtual happy hours, get-togethers, book clubs, trivia competitions, etc. and building directories that offer background on different employees’ interests and ways to connect with them casually online (social media accounts, live stream channels, etc.) you can foster more interaction and team spirit.

Topic: Creating a More Flexible Approach to Work: Redesigning Employee Schedules

Scenario: Business owners and management teams are used to having people participate in 40-hour workweeks and talent development activities on-site – now they have to redesign their working strategies to account for social distancing, variable hours (noting that it may no longer be profitable to operate certain days/times), staggering shifts, etc. They need a guide to how to do scheduling right.

Insight: Do you need to compress your work schedule into fewer days so hours are maintained and less days on site are required? Break workers into teams and stagger their shifts so fewer people are on-site and exposed to hazards at any given time? There are lots of ways to plan a work schedule beyond simply cutting hours.