The Best-Kept Secrets to Managing a Growing Team: Building Better Hybrid and Remote Work Environments
Growth is the goal in any business - it’s what keeps the company alive and provides new opportunities for its employees.
There are many things to keep in mind as your company grows, and your team is one of the most important. You will need excellent team management practices to stay successful. This will include finding new employees, training them, and figuring out how to keep them fulfilled and happy.
But as you add more team members, the more difficult it can be to keep track of everything. This can be especially true when the team is remote or hybrid.
There is no one-size-fits-all answer to managing a growing team, as it depends on your company’s culture and the type of work that you do. However, there are some general guidelines that you can follow. In this post, we will take you through our guidelines on how to lead a large team. Here’s what we’ll cover:
What makes up a growing team?
The challenges of a growing team
Strategies to effectively manage a growing team
What constitutes a growing team
Team growth is an important factor in determining the success of a company. A growing team is one that is adapting to the changing needs of the company. It is a team that has a constant stream of new members, but it also has a culture and values that remain the same.
The most important aspect of a growing team is its ability to stay true to its culture and values while adapting to the needs of its customers.
Here are some characteristics of a growing team:
The need to hire new employees with different skill sets than those of existing employees
The need to create new job descriptions and reevaluate existing ones
The need to set up new processes and procedures
Challenges of a growing team
While an increase in the number of employees may signal that your company is doing well, things are not always smooth behind the scenes. A fast growing team comes with many challenges that any company needs to tackle. Such challenges may include, but are not limited to:
Management challenges
If you have a team of 10 people and you add 5 more people to it, how do you manage them differently? Do you need to hire an extra person for HR? How do you coordinate activities for maximum productivity? It becomes difficult to keep track of each individual’s work and understand how they are contributing to the company.
Communication challenges
As your team grows, there are more people working on different projects. How do you make sure that everyone knows what’s happening? Who should they contact for support? Everyone needs to know how communication channels should flow - issues with your communication structure can lead to inefficient work and may affect productivity.
A growing team can lead to conflict
When a team is growing, there are many opportunities for conflicts to arise. This is because as the team grows, the number of interactions between people on the team also increases. With more interactions come more opportunities for collaboration challenges, which can lead to conflicts between and among team members and managers.
What is the best strategy for managing a large team?
As a team grows, the need for more people to help manage the workload increases. There are many strategies that can be used to manage a growing team, from hiring new people to outsourcing work.
Established systems to accommodate change
As your team grows, be sure that the systems that are in place can accommodate the changes. This will help your team be able to continue with current processes, grow, and thrive at the same time.
Systems like communication and project management can help you keep track of what everyone is doing and their progress in their projects. There can also be processes for hiring new team members or systems for distributing work among your existing staff.
Some things that you need to consider are:
How do your new employees get introduced and oriented?
What training programs do they need?
What kind of work environment do they need?
Do your current employees have the skill set to train new hires or does it require a specialist?
Institute a conflict management system (handling resistance to change)
Companies should implement conflict management systems when teams are growing in size, as they can be difficult to manage when there is a larger number of people involved. Your goal as a company is to prevent conflicts from escalating and becoming obstructive.
To do this, companies need to make sure that everyone understands what they are supposed to do. It’s important that the goals of the company are clear and that everyone knows their role in achieving those goals. Also, be sure that people are treated with respect and dignity during conflicts, and that they are held accountable for their actions.
Show appreciation for existing employees
A growing team can be a challenge for employees. They may feel that they are being replaced or undervalued and this can lead to a negative work environment.
To avoid this, we should show appreciation for the existing employees and make them feel valued in the company. This will help them stay with the company and contribute their best to the new team members. Some ways of showing appreciation could include sharing more responsibility with current employees, giving more opportunities to learn new skills, and recognizing them in front of others.
Update your communication system to meet your current needs
As your team grows, it is important to update your communication system to meet the current needs of the company. This includes updating systems that are being used for internal communications, such as email and chat systems. This also includes ensuring that your team upgrades to a better plan of any communication tools you are using, including Slack, Zoom, or any other tools that make interactions easy for employees.
Embrace the changes
Managing a growing team comes with new challenges and obstacles. You’ll need to embrace the changes and make it work. This is especially true when you are faced with changes in your team structure, such as promotions or new hires. This can be a time of uncertainty and stress, but it doesn’t have to be that way. Everyone should be on the same page with the company’s culture, and leadership should also be open about any changes in the company, working hard to keep your employees updated.
Adjust and reassign roles
As your team grows, it is important that the roles are adjusted and reassigned for every new person that joins. Everyone has a clear understanding of what it is they are supposed to do within the new structure. Here’s how:
Communicate with all of your employees about the changes
Change job descriptions as required
Reallocate resources based on the additional needs of different teams
Use feedback to determine your next steps
Feedback is important to any team, but it becomes even more important when the team is growing. It can help you understand how your team is doing, what they need to improve on, and what they are excelling at.
The best way to use feedback is by asking for feedback from your team members. Ask them what they think has been working well and what hasn’t been working well. Ask them if there are any changes that they would like to see in the future.
Adjust leadership style as needed
Leadership is an arduous task, especially when you are trying to lead a team of people who have different backgrounds, varying skill sets, and are always growing.
All too often, leaders may assume that their leadership style will work for the team they are leading at all times. However, this is not the case. The size of a team is one of the most important factors in determining the style of leadership that is needed. It is important to understand how your leadership style interacts with your team members and how it will affect them as they grow in numbers. You should also be ready to tweak your style when managing large teams, whether that is creating more hierarchies or prioritizing delegation.
Manage your growing team through virtual team building activities
Virtual team building activities are especially helpful in managing a growing remote team. They are a great way to keep the team engaged, motivated, and collaborating through the changes. Whether it’s a get-to-know-you icebreaker session for new team members, or a mini games competition to boost team morale, Bar None Games has got you covered.
