As of October 2020, the world is eight months into the COVID-19 pandemic. Working remotely is no longer a novelty, and for many of us, the relief of being able to work from home while staying healthy and safe with our families wore off a few months ago. With the work-from-home mandates becoming permanent for some teams across the country and with no end in sight to the pandemic, building trust in remote teams has never been more crucial to fostering productivity and maintaining company standards.
Why Remote Teams Should Focus on Building Trust
If you are the leader of a remote team, you may wonder why you should think about building your team’s trust in each other, you, or the company as a whole. After all, isn’t this why they were hired? Surely, they are people of integrity who can be counted on to turn in work on time, communicate with fellow team members, and come to you or other superiors if they have complaints of grievances. Not necessarily. With the new rules of remote work, many aspects of in-person work that you may have taken for granted — deadlines, community, and overall productivity — can come into question.
How To Build Trust
When mulling over about how to convey a sense of trust while keeping your sense of authority, you may be better off thinking about the little messages you are sending to your team members rather than the broad strokes. The key to building trust, as well as morale, often lies in the details you may otherwise overlook. For example, well-meaning team leaders who want to make their team’s productivity and connectedness a priority may accidentally convey a lack of trust by checking in too often. Patrick Lencioni dives into this topic in great detail in this video. Consider this: if your boss called you on a daily basis to “connect” or “check-in” with you, would you assume that this person trusted you to handle the intricacies of your position? The answer is probably no.
Positive Conflict in Remote Teams
Why does positive conflict matter when discussing trust among a team? Isn’t all conflict negative? Hardly. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 118.3 million workers, who earn an average wage of $23.40 an hour, make up America’s workforce. Unfortunately, according to research from Wiley Workplace Learning Solutions, 22% of newly remote workers they surveyed were not confident that their teams could be productive remotely. By focusing on building great working relationships and fostering trust as well as a conflict between your team members, especially in the age of COVID-19, you will have invested in them in an invaluable way. This positive conflict allows your team to be open, honest with each other and to sometimes engage in a heated debate that leads to problem-solving.
Learning to work remotely, maintain a healthy work-life balance, and sustain a high level of productivity from home can be challenging at best, and this scenario can quickly turn into a breakdown of trust among team members if not managed correctly. For more advice on building trust while working from home, contact New Summit Leadership today.
