Building a diverse remote dream team that transcends time zones is becoming an increasingly popular trend among companies. Collaboration and team building are crucial for job satisfaction and fostering excellent working relationships that drive engagement. This article presents seven essential tips to help you build your dream team, regardless of geographical constraints.
But first, let’s take a look at some compelling statistics on the importance of team building:
- A fully-engaged workforce has the potential to deliver twice the revenue.
- The number of companies investing in virtual team building has skyrocketed by 2,500%.
- 75% of staff members consider teamwork and collaboration as crucial factors for corporate success.
- The United States ranks second globally in the implementation of virtual team-building initiatives.
- 33% of employees believe nurturing a collaborative culture increases loyalty.
Now, let’s delve into the components that are vital to assembling a remarkable dream team.
How to build a remote dream team
Define clear goals and roles
Clearly define the goals and objectives of your team and ensure that each member understands their specific roles and responsibilities within the team. This clarity enables individuals to align their efforts toward a common purpose. For example, suppose you’re building a marketing team for a tech startup. In that case, you may aim to increase brand awareness, and individual roles include a social media manager, content creator, and SEO specialist.
Identify the needs
Before hiring talent, it’s imperative to identify the various skills the team needs to possess. This goes far beyond the basics, such as customer service or the ability to work with others. Taking a hard look at the purpose of the team and its intended output will result in a list of skills and abilities that may seem extraordinary or hard to come by but is actually the purpose of the exercise. A list that seems a bit out of reach will ensure the hiring process and assembly of talent is held to a higher standard, thus increasing the probability of a more effective team.
Hire the talent (from the inside)
Of course, the next step is to find the talent based on the exercise in step one. An interesting and often surprising tactic is looking from within the company first. It might even be company policy, but it is often just a formality. However, the desired skills and abilities could be sitting on the other side of the conference room. Interviewing existing employees with the intention of tapping into interests and skills not currently being utilized can be an effective (and cost-effective) method to locate ‘new’ talent.
Hire the talent (from the outside)
With people on the inside evaluated and possibly reassigned, it’s time to revisit the skills list, identify gaps, and move to the outside to round out the team. This can be done in the traditional manner of resumes and recruiting or through the use of social media and networking sites. In addition, everyone knows people, and the circles reach farther than most realize. Tapping into these connections can produce amazing hidden talent.
Create a culture of strength
With the team assembled, roles and responsibilities should be assigned based on each individual’s strengths and goals. This is done only with careful analysis and communication and may be the most critical part of the entire process. Teams will create a subculture within a company’s overall culture. Because of this, the strengths of each team member must be tapped, as well as their goals, to ensure high morale within the team.
Empower employees’ ideas
It starts from the top or at least from team leaders. Allowing individual team members to voice their opinions, new ideas, or solutions to existing problems and be heard is rare but so powerful. Fostering an environment where mistakes can be made, new ideas can be put into practice, and teams can work together on complex yet invigorating tasks is worth doing. The ideas of those on the front line are often the most innovative and effective.
Encourage continuous learning and growth
A dream team comprises motivated individuals who learn, improve, and adapt. Encourage professional development and provide opportunities for skill enhancement. This could include training programs, workshops, or mentoring. For instance, you can create a budget for employees to attend relevant conferences or enroll in online courses that align with their professional growth. Investing in your team’s development creates a culture of continuous improvement and drives innovation.
Conclusion
Arguably the original ‘Dream Team’ was the US Olympic basketball team in 1992. To this day, many people believe no team, either in sports, entertainment, or corporate, has ever come close to the synergy that was created between those 12 members. That synergy was created with an intimate knowledge of each position, the careful selection of talent to fill those positions, tapping into the strengths and personalities of each player, and then giving the team wings to fly. And fly, they did.
Building a remote dream team is not easy, but it’s possible, and the results can be incredible, perhaps even historic. Just ask Michael Jordan.
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