How to manage a global team

Global hiring is becoming a reality for companies of all sizes in almost every industry. But assembling a global team is just the start. It’s the effective management of your team that will dictate your success moving forward.

The challenges of managing a global team

Despite the many benefits of hiring a global team, there will always be a handful of challenges to overcome. Understanding these challenges goes a long way in helping you address them head-on. While there’s no way of knowing exactly what complications you’ll face in the future, here are five of the most common challenges of managing global teams.

1. Communication

Frequent communication is imperative when working with a global team, but some roadblocks can stand in your way. These include but are not limited to:

• Varying time zones. 
• Language barriers. 
• Impersonal communication. 

Despite these challenges, there are tools that can help. For example, video conferencing software allows you to communicate face to face. This can make up for the fact that you’re not in the same physical location. 

2. Fair compensation

 A big part of successful global team management is ensuring that every employee is compensated fairly. This can be a challenge when you consider exchange rates and varying costs of living.

Localized pay is the key to fair compensation, but this isn’t something to manage manually. It makes more sense to deploy a software solution—such as Oyster’s global employment platform—that simplifies the process of paying employees in their local currency. 

3. Equal benefits

It’s easy to say that you’ll provide all your employees with the same benefits package. And if they all live in the same country, doing so is often a straightforward process. 

Providing equal benefits is more complex with a global team. One of the primary reasons for this is that local laws, regulations, and holiday schedules vary from between countries. Once again, utilizing a proven software solution that accounts for these differences generally makes more sense than trying to learn all of the ins and outs yourself.

4. Onboarding new talent

The days of onboarding all new talent in person are a thing of the past. Today, you’re likely to do most of your onboarding remotely—especially when it comes to global teams. This includes everything from collecting tax documents to sharing training manuals and holding meetings. 

Without a defined onboarding strategy, you’re likely to overlook important details that will cost your company time and/or money. Furthermore, an inefficient approach to onboarding could make for a miserable “startup period” for new hires, resulting in an above-average turnover rate.

5. Fostering a great team culture

Communication, coordination, and collaboration are essential to the long-term success of your global team, but don’t let these factors overshadow the importance of fostering a great team culture. You want to build a global team that meets the needs and maintains the trust of new and existing employees alike. 

Here are some tips for fostering an impressive team culture:

• Keep an open line of communication: Make it simple for all employees, regardless of location, to communicate with one another. You don’t want anyone to feel like they’re on an “island.”
• Hold remote team-building exercises: Team building doesn’t have to take place in person. Remote team-building exercises can be as simple as creating a virtual breakroom or setting up a recognition system.
• Don’t micromanage from afar: It’s never a good idea to micromanage, and that’s especially true when working with a distributed team. Don’t tell your team members that they have to be at their computers all day long. Don’t make regular checkup calls just to ensure that they’re following your instructions. 

How Oyster can help

Now that you know the challenges of managing global teams, it’s time to get the help you need to succeed. And that’s where Oyster can step in. 

Oyster gives your team members a simple dashboard where they can file expenses, apply for time off, and view their contract, payslips, and benefits—all from one place. Oyster also handles all the legal complexities of onboarding and paying in countries around the world, which allows you to spend your time looking after the team’s well-being.

To put it simply, Oyster enables hiring anywhere in the world. Get started by registering online for a free account. From there, you’ll have everything you need to better manage your global workforce.