16. Keeping your remote team on track: Managing people and running online meetings in the Covid-19 era.

A one and a half hour online workshop.

The abrupt transition to remote working necessitated by the Covid-19 pandemic has forced managers to create new ways of working with their teams. Leading a team remotely can be challenging for managers who are used to frequent face to face interactions. Working remotely can be even more challenging to scientists whose work may be stopped or slowed down and who find it difficult to get the input and guidance they need from their managers.

Our extensive work with scientific organizations of all types has shown us that :

  • Many managers are running too many online meetings.

  • The meetings they do run are often far too long.

  • Most of their meetings have too many participants.

  • There are people in their groups who need their attention and aren't getting it.

  • They are probably not giving enough feedback to their team and the feedback they are giving isn't being given in the most effective way.

This workshop will show you how to address each of these common remote-working problems. We will review the challenges to managing a team remotely and we will provide specific guidance on how to overcome the most common issues encountered. We will also review how to run productive online meetings and what kinds of practices and behaviors leaders can adopt to make online meetings as useful as possible. Specific topics include:

The need for scheduled interactions when working remotely.

  • The importance of feedback for remote workers.

  • A simple model for giving effective feedback.

  • The challenges of online meetings, including Zoom “burn-out” and how to counter them.

  • Tools to actively engage your meeting participants.

  • Using breakout rooms as a tool to promote engagement.