Managing the team of remote writers, content managers face a task not so easy to crack. Finding the right spot between pushing writers into productivity and guiding them to keep mental focus is a win for a successful team leader.
The aftermath of pandemic pushes CEOs of either digital agencies or big brands to switch the in-house teams of writers to a remote type of employment. But it only sounds easy to take a bunch of people and manage them remotely. In reality, a true leader and talented manager should give people a healthy dose of motivation, strategy of the overall work, and vision of their professional growth.
We have outlined the top 5 tips that can increase the productivity of remote writers in your company. After reading them, you’ll be able to improve performance and get firm evidence that remote teams can deliver similar results to in-house teams.
1.Create a Precise Content Release Calendar
To create the roadmap of remote writers’ team performance, you’ll have to deliver a content release calendar that answers two questions: where is the team now and where it will be in several months or so. Brands usually have several goals in mind when having content marketing under their wing. First of all, you want to spread a word about your brand. Later on, the goal stretches to returning those happy customers back again even more satisfied than before.
A precise content release plan shows what kind of content will be released relevantly to the stage of business growth. Asking how to create it without much of a prior experience? Firstly, keep in mind time periods during which the team of remote writers will deliver content units. Every week, month, and year quarter should be covered in your future plan, so your team won’t be adrift about what they’re doing now and for what purpose.
2.Create a Dedicated Workstation
If you want your remote essay writers to focus on performing the tasks with the same level of effectiveness like they’ve been used to in office, then you should agree on creating a dedicated workstation that will meet baseline requirements. It’s important to understand if your company follows the BYOD standard. This policy allows workers to use their own hardware and software to interact with corporate processes.
Secondly, ensure that workers have access to applications and data that make job being done possible. Corporate firewalls might become such a barrier, so instruct workers to use the VPN service of your choice. Finally, ask if your writers have a working table and comfortable chair because sitting at home in front of the PC for the whole day may be quite daunting.
3.Ensure Proper Content Revision and Feedback for Every Writer
Revision and feedback loop is essential in keeping the whole content story together and bringing benefits to your company even despite managing the team remotely. A good practice is to schedule a Zoom or Skype call with the whole team to explain how things will work when producing content. First of all, agree on a person who will be responsible for revising content and giving feedback.
Writers will send their work to the person who holds that role to get a proper revision and possible remarks on improving content. Also, don’t forget to agree on the deadlines for every content piece. Each member of your team must operate in a certain time frame to allow the whole team hit the desired KPI.
4.Prepare the List of Performance Expectations
Yes, setting up KPIs will tell if a remote team operates under the performance expectations. When setting up an effective KPI for remote writers, keep in mind 7 characteristics:
- Simplicity
- Relevance
- Measurability
- Achievability
- Visibility
- Timeliness
- Compliance with company’s goals
For example, you should set the deadline for each content task (timeliness) with the compliance of the instructions provided to the writer (measurability) and the level of complexity for each individual assignment (simplicity).
When a writer sends the completed task, it should be on the set timeframe, should follow all the instructions clipped to the task, and must be labeled with the complexity indicator. Of course, there could be lots of combinations based on these characteristics, so measuring a remote team’s performance indeed can be a multifaceted process.
5.Talk About Daily Check-Ins
Last but not the least, let’s talk about tracking if people are actually working like they should. All that you have to do at this point as a manager is set the daily in-chat or via-the-call check-in. Every team member must report which volume of content they produced. Daily check-ins are the basic form of self-discipline, yet it needs some extent of management.
To Sum Up
Making the performance of your remote team not worse than keeping writers in-house is a challenging task. In the time of pandemic, it’s a double challenge because companies cut budgets on marketing and content creation, and you might be no exception. We hope that the tips outlined above will be helpful to handle the remote team in the best way without losing a single benefit compared to managing writers directly.