Leading from afar: Managing remote teams

As remote work has become increasingly popular, credit departments are seeing more and more team members clocking in from different states or countries. Managing a team spread across the world can present unique challenges, but managers have found ways to remain deeply connected with their teams despite the distance dividing them.  

Why it matters: Manycompanies have maintained multiple locations across state lines and time zones for decades. While it can be challenging for those new to management roles, slight adjustments to your leadership can help you accommodate the distance without sacrificing your relationship with your team members. 

The biggest adjustment is finding a way to keep regular contact with your employees that you might not see every day. Whether you’ve instituted daily, weekly or monthly check-ins with your team, it is important to remember that communication with remote workers can be just as frequent and easy as it would be in person.  

“Communication makes a big difference,” said Scott Chase, CCE, CICP, global director of credit for Gibson Brands (Nashville, TN). “I try to check in more often and communicate more intentionally on the stressors that may be impacting people. Even before working remotely, we had stressors, whether they were medical or personal matters that weighed on us, so I make a point of making sure I know what is going on with my team.” 

Managers who manage wide-sprawling teams know the importance of operating around differences in time zones. “Time zones can be a stressor for anybody working in multiple locations,” Chase said. “For example, when I am meeting with my team in Europe, I schedule the meeting early in the morning because they are six hours ahead of me.” 

Juggling different schedules can present unique challenges, but it all comes down to finding a balance and being flexible. “Working with an international team, I start work at 5 a.m. every day,” said Jessica Riviere, CCRA, ICCE, senior director of finance at BDP International (Philadelphia, PA). “I am comfortable starting early, but I know I cannot expect that from everyone. But what I do expect is flexibility. I cannot always meet in your daytime hours, and you cannot always meet in my daytime hours, so we both need to be flexible. This is an expectation that you set as a manager up front.”  

For those with international teams, there may even be a language barrier that you need to accommodate. “I’ve found it is really helpful to recap meetings in writing afterwards and ask the other team to transcribe the recap in their local language, so both teams have the meeting details in writing that we can refer back to,” Riviere said. “The recap is helpful to make sure you’ve interpreted it the way that it was meant to be interpreted.” 

When in person, you can easily pop-in to someone’s office and see what they are working on, but it can be a bit harder to gauge what other team members are up to when they are not next door to you. “At first it may be difficult, and you may feel unsure that each person is actually working hard out of the office,” said Sandra Logan, credit and collections manager for Stanton Carpet Corporation (Calhoun, GA). “Because we’re responsible for credit and collections, I can see how many credit applications come in and then see when accounts are set up. I’m able to check that payments are collected and that information is sent to the appropriate people. If those numbers start slipping then you know there is a problem.” 

The bottom line: When you have a team spread across time zones or even countries, it is important that you do not lose sight of the value of strong communication. While there may be more challenges, from differences in schedule to language barriers, it is critical that credit managers work towards a dynamic that keeps everyone in the loop while respecting each person’s working habits.