Part of a successful virtual team management is arranging regular one on one meetings with each of your staff members.
When there is no coffee machine to gather around, it is that little bit harder to get to really know your virtual staff member. It is so easy for one of your office staff to drop by your desk, but with your virtual staff, it requires a greater deal of organization for these meetings to happen.
It is well worth the effort to find out about your virtual team. What are their hobbies, how many children do they have, what does their spouse do? Knowing your virtual team member to this extent will cement the relationship between you the employer and your employee.
A person who has a genuine relationship with their boss will want to please him and be willing to work harder for him. But you don’t build this sort of relationship in managing virtual teams just to see what you can get out of it. You do it because you are genuinely interested in your remote staff and want the best for them. If someone has a personal problem, it nearly always begins to affect their work, so helping that person whenever possible has a benefit which goes both ways.
Great managers know their team. Every week, there should be a meeting between you and each of your assistants. You want to find out what is going on in their world. It is their opportunity to talk to you about any problems they are experiencing with their work, but it is also a time when they can tell you the parts of the work which they find the most enjoyable.
You may think that the regular one on ones will eat into your time. In fact the reverse is true, and because the assistant knows he has these scheduled times with you, he won’t bother you during the week with every issue that comes up. He will save these points and bring them all up at the time of the one on one meeting. This will lead to a great saving in your time doing virtual team management effectively.
The way you break up the thirty minute meeting is by spending the first ten minutes letting your assistant talk about anything they want to. This is their opportunity to tell you what is going on in their life. The next ten minutes is about you. You can talk about the work and what expectations you have of the assistant. If you want them to open up about themselves, it is necessary for you also to be open about what is going on. The first time this may feel a little awkward, but as time goes on and you begin to feel more comfortable with each other, both of you will feel easier and will begin to share more freely.
The last few minutes can be spent talking about personal growth. What can be done to take your virtual assistant to the next level? They may tell you about courses they want to study or books they intend reading to help them improve their skills. You can provide some direction to them as well using effective virtual team management.
There is much more to learn about one on one meetings for managing virtual teams effectively. Check out our Facebook page at Facebook.com/SEOMastermind.
Are you making the most of your one on one meetings?
