Feedback is an essential communication practice pivotal in overcoming remote teams' challenges. That’s why feedback is important. Business owners, C-suite executives, or team leaders can face complications when managing team alignment, motivation, and overall performance without a physical office space.
To maintain productivity, foster employee engagement, and ensure overall success, advanced strategies are essential. Delivering points for improvement is instrumental in improving collaboration and enhancing productivity. This ensures employees remain connected to their work and aligned with organizational goals, even when working from different locations. Beyond boosting productivity, this data nurtures growth and creates an environment where continuous learning thrives.
By fostering a culture of feedback, you also strengthen employee relationships and build trust within teams. Employees become more accountable for their work by understanding that they have clear expectations and guidance from leadership.
This boosts their confidence and encourages them to excel. In the end, giving constructive critiques is not just about improving performance—it’s about creating a more cohesive, motivated, and successful team, no matter where they are located geographically.
In this guide, we’ll break down why feedback is important as a critical factor for maximizing the success of remote work environments, particularly global outsourcing models.
Why is Feedback Important in Remote Teams?
Feedback is essential in every work environment but is more important in remote teams due to the lack of in-person interaction. This can create communication gaps, misalignment and reduced visibility. After all, with remote work, you can’t simply take a break and grab a coffee together at the local shop.
When communicating in person, so much is gained through word inflections, in-person cues, and body language that cannot be captured fully through asynchronous or synchronous communication channels via email, message platforms, phone, or video conferencing.
How was the feedback received emotionally? What are the cultural or language barriers you may face? Heavy reliance on email and messaging can leave statements open to misinterpretation. That’s why feedback is important regularly. Feedback opens the door to two-way communication and clarification while rectifying misalignments.
Why You Should Be Intentional About Evaluations in a Remote Setting
When working remotely, it can become too easy for employees not to clearly understand their job, how they fit into the team and the company's overall goals. Workers may be unable to prioritize their work, leading to poor productivity and performance.
Moreover, spontaneous conversations and ideas have limited space in remote work. This further inhibits collaboration. In an office setting, leaders can observe how employees work and engage in their tasks. Workers can speak in person at any time. That’s why constructive criticism is important, especially for remote teams.
Reduced visibility of employees causes structural isolation and the added emotional challenge of loneliness. Working in a silo, employees can find it difficult to have instant access to the information they may need to complete tasks. This can be intensified if companies work across various time zones.
Additionally, without feedback, remote workers may not receive recognition for the work they do. Worse yet, a lack of face time with management can leave workers feeling like they could be left behind regarding opportunities and promotions in the workplace.
An added emotional challenge of reduced visibility of remote work is loneliness. This results from a lack of connection to others. Loneliness can negatively affect a worker’s overall job performance. Working remotely means management may be unaware of the remote worker's struggles. Feedback is important for management to assess all aspects of an employee’s work and job satisfaction.
Feedback: a Shared Language in Global Teams
There are many reasons why feedback is important. It isn’t just a managerial tool in remote teams; it’s the vital "glue" that holds everything together. Global outsourced teams often include members from diverse cultures and work environments. Each has its own approach to communication and work processes.
Feedback helps establish a shared language and set of norms for collaboration, encouraging alignment despite cultural differences. It fosters a sense of belonging and inclusion. Remote workers feel seen and valued for their contributions despite their physical distance. Outsourced global talent thrives when feedback loops are clear and consistent, improving integration and performance.
Why Feedback is Important in Enhancing Employee Engagement
In organizations, employees need to feel seen, heard and valued. This is why feedback is important, especially when working with remote teams. Positive feedback helps workers understand where they are succeeding.
Data from a Gallup study illustrated that employees who received regular feedback were 3.6 times more likely to remain engaged at work. Moreover, employees stay motivated and continue to work for the company, reducing sick days and overall company turnover.
Feedback needs to be personalized; comment not only on the individual’s work but on how their work contributes to the overall team and the company. Let your employees know how their contribution matters. Ask for their thoughts and ideas on how to improve work outcomes. Keep them involved. Companies that utilize consistent feedback make workers feel empowered. It’s an environment that promotes future success.
How to Review Your Team’s Performance When Working Remotely
What are some specific and actionable steps business owners, C-suite executives, or team leaders can take to provide effective feedback to remote teams? First on the list is creating a feedback culture. To accomplish this, feedback needs to be habitual. Remote workers cannot thrive through annual performance reviews alone!
Think about weekly check-ins. Additionally, make yourself available daily with a remote open-door policy regarding feedback. When communicating with management, employees must feel part of a non-judgement zone.
Hold monthly group meetings to ensure communication and create a bond for your remote team. Encourage honest feedback. Group meetings offer the perfect environment to celebrate wins and showcase stellar work and achievements. Follow up with team members individually after group meetings to obtain further feedback, ideas, or possible collaborative projects that the meeting may have sparked.
Feedback sessions do not have to be lengthy. Think about shorter sessions that provide timely feedback about ongoing work. The longer you wait to give feedback on items needing improvement, the more corrections will be required. Additionally, timely feedback will reinforce exemplary work habits.
What about communication tools? Virtual meeting platforms like Zoom, Microsoft Teams, and Skype are the next best options for in-person communication. and the most personable approach for remote workers.
Afterwards, follow up with written notes. Slack and Asana offer collaboration software to allow teams to work together and prioritize work, providing updates and feedback in the form of comments.
Tailor feedback to outsourced talent’s communication styles to ensure they receive it well. . Understand and be aware of cultural differences. Use examples from real life to illustrate your points. When it comes to apps, translation tools can be a real advantage.
Managing Outsourced Global Talent? You Need to Work on Connections
Managing outsourced talent across different cultures, regions, and time zones requires a strategic approach. Building trust can be complicated due to limited face-to-face interaction. There can be a disconnect without the opportunity for spontaneous conversations or in-person team-building activities.
Regular virtual team meetings are a first step. Still, it is equally important to create opportunities for team members to connect personally, such as virtual coffee breaks or casual chats, to foster a sense of camaraderie.
Honest communication also builds trust. Openly discussing cultural differences enables understanding and gives team members a sense of belonging. Recognizing diversity as a strength leads to everyone feeling part of the team.
Organizations can harness the full potential of a diverse, global workforce by promoting cultural sensitivity, adapting processes to accommodate time zone differences, and aligning expectations. With the right strategies, these challenges can be turned into opportunities for growth, innovation, and a more cohesive, high-performing team.
Read this case study entitled Mountain Gazette Uses Wing to Improve Response Rates to Customers by 29%-Wing Assistant In it, Mountain Gazette editor and owner Mike Rogge is not afraid to publicize his feedback and gratitude for Wing Assistant Komal.
He says, “We’d actually started getting feedback like, ‘Komal is so friendly!’ or ‘Komal is the nicest person ever!’ We didn’t expect her to be so customer-facing, but she’s become the face of our customer service and a beloved team member now.”
Feedback is a Crucial Aspect of Team Success
In conclusion, there are so many reasons why feedback is important. In distributed work environments, where in-person communication is limited, feedback helps maintain alignment across the team. It ensures everyone works toward the same goals and objectives. Without consistent feedback, team members may drift off course, leading to miscommunication and inefficiencies that can disrupt productivity.
Advanced feedback strategies go beyond simply pointing out areas for improvement. They involve structured, constructive conversations focusing on building strengths, solving problems collaboratively, and encouraging continuous development.
By using regular check-ins and real-time feedback tools, teams can stay connected and foster an open communication culture. This transparency helps prevent misunderstandings, reduce feelings of isolation, and increase accountability among remote team members.
At Wing Assistant, we have established a built-in system for providing feedback on a VA’s performance. It’s feedback made easy!
Are you looking to expand your remote and global team? Contact Wing Assistant.
Aya is Wing Assistant’s blog manager. When she’s not wrangling content briefs, editing article drafts and handling on-page SEO, she is crafting messages for Wing’s other communication materials. Aya writes about SaaS startups, marketing for startups, search engine optimization, and pop culture.
