In an age in which people are increasingly working remotely – from home or from a local cafe – it’s more important than ever for managers to find ways to organize and motivate their teams. That’s the case for all teams across all sectors, but it’s especially the case for marketing teams. With so much collaboration between your colleagues in both a creative and an analytical capacity, your remote working setup needs to be perfect to help you mimic the atmosphere within the office. Here’s how you’ll create it, shouldering your managerial responsibilities with panache. 

Briefing

Some firms have been working on an informal flexible work basis for some time now, since the beginning of the pandemic. No specific policy is in place, which means some employees work the majority of their time in the office, while others spend most of their time working from home. While some firms might find that this imbalance works fine for them, many are beginning to open their eyes to the benefits of having a set remote or flexible work policy. 

For instance, a weekly meeting might be best attended in person rather than online. If your workers are all still living in proximity to the office, you might expect them to come in for two days per week – on Tuesdays and Thursdays, for example. Other firms will be happy to be a little flexible on this. If you’re struggling to decide how to get remote teams to work well together, it’s worth researching the efforts of others online. There is some great advice as well as a number of tools that can help you. Then, set a remote work policy and ask your staff to stick to it in a remote working briefing. That’ll get everyone on the same page.

Communications

Still, even if you mandate some office time for your staff, it’s likely that many will remote work when they can. Other firms will be fine with remote working all of the time, seeing this as an opportunity to get rid of the office and its associated expenses and instead invest that cash in the business and the tools that you use to perform your job. 

Chief among these tools is communication software. It’s the bedrock of all your marketing efforts when staff are working from home, as it’s the only way in which you’re going to be able to get your workers in touch with one another in such a way that they can perform their work as fast as if they were sat next to one another in the office. Let’s take a look at some of the key software you should onboard:

• Video conferencing software. This is perfect for those all-important group meetings where you set the tone for the day or the week and discuss projects or brainstorm together as a team.
• Instant messaging apps. Try not to use Facebook Messenger or WhatsApp for your internal messages, as this is too informal. Instead, use Microsoft Teams chat or a standalone solution such as Slack. 
• Collaborative apps. These apps are all about getting your team together to work on a document or project in one window or application. There are dozens out there, so it’s up to you which you pick.

Nail your communications, and you’ll find that everything else will fall neatly into place for your marketing teams, who, after all, rely on conversation to come up with ideas and to streamline campaigns.

Managerial Technique

When you’re in the office, it’s easy to get an overview of how your team are feeling and whether they’re motivated and productive or demotivated and unproductive. When your team is working remotely, though, you’ll be in the dark about what exactly they’re doing – and whether they’re tapping away at their laptops or slouching on the couch waiting for 5pm to roll around. So, how can you motivate your staff when they’re working remotely? What should you bear in mind when you’re getting in touch for weekly remote one-to-one meetings? Here are some ideas:

• Be proactive and ask about the mental health of your employees. Create safe spaces for them to let you know if they’re struggling in the job, especially with stress and burnout.
• Schedule times for your staff to have casual conversations with one another to encourage a team spirit among your workers. This helps bind your team a little closer together.
• Be aware that offering an afternoon off work if your team has produced excellent results across the course of a week can be highly motivating and rewarding for your workers.

The key to this tip is to be open and cognizant of the fact that most of your staff will have highs and lows in the job. You want them to feel seen when they’re feeling this way, but also to find ways to give them a boost before they reach a state of stress, anxiety, or burnout. Marketing is a high-pressure and deadline-driven job, so whatever you can do to take off the pressure will be greatly appreciated by the staff.

Supervision Software

There are some managers who jump at the opportunity to supervise their workers closer when they’re working remotely, and some who find the idea a little distasteful. Often, it’ll depend on what kind of work you and your colleagues perform, and whether you feel there’s a need to keep an eye on their productivity and the amount of time each member of staff is spending online when they’re logged in at work. It’s useful to have the option to supervise staff if you see productivity dropping off, for instance. 

This software comes in several different forms. There’s software that requires workers to sign in – a virtual “clock-in”, to a server that’ll then monitor how much activity they’re doing on that server. A simpler way of tracking your workers is to see if their icons are “active” on the apps that you’re using to complete your work. Or you could simply ask a random employee every day to talk you through their day and to show proof of their work. That’ll help you ensure your marketing team knows that they can’t slack significantly on the job. 

Make use of these tips to help your marketing team work remotely with panache and style in the coming months.