Natalie Baldini: Successful Strategies on Managing a Team Remotely

No matter what business you’re in, your team is the key to making sure you drive growth and have an overall successful company. It’s much easier to stay on top of your team and colleagues in an office environment, especially if you’re in a management position. However, since the pandemic, this isn’t always possible. Most businesses have had to turn to remote working, an unknown platform for many.

Speaking to Natalie Baldini, she has had to make the same move to start managing her team remotely. However, it doesn’t have to be difficult and Natalie has provided us with valuable tips on ensuring a successful team when you’re not together in person. To ensure growth and client satisfaction, you need to have a happy and productive team.

In this week’s Rediscover Marketing article, we’re delving into the importance of a unified team. The focus on remote working comes to benefit those many companies who have made the change and may be struggling.

Who is Natalie Baldini?

Natalie Baldini is a successful Creative Content Producer who previously worked at ViacomCBS. She’s been in marketing for her entire career and was a production assistant throughout college. Natalie worked for a creative advertising executive and enjoyed the industry so much that she left college to work full-time. She absorbed as much knowledge as she could from the people she was working with and discovered that creative content was her passion. From working with large production companies and films, she made her way to Viacom.

At Viacom, she led the marketing production and operations of the Awesomeness brand, which focused on content for Gen Z. She moved on to overseeing both marketing and the social team as soon as the pandemic hit. However, like many other businesses, Viacom took a hit, and Natalie had to leave her role.

However, this was not the end for Natalie. She has spent the last year learning how to manage and work with teams remotely.

The Unconscious Bias

Something that Natalie believes other marketing and growth leaders should pay attention to this year when caring for their team is the unconscious bias. This is where a person may have a swayed belief that they aren’t aware of.

Natalie elaborated on the fact that now is an excellent opportunity to focus on unconscious biases and learn about ourselves. As a manager, this will allow you to help the people you work with grow and become the best they can be. She believes that unconscious biases can get out of hand when you’re in your thoughts all the time.

When you’re in an office, it’s easier to fall into patterns of unconscious bias because you’re around people a lot more and make judgments. When working remotely, you’re able to focus on the work at hand and ensure everyone gets the support they need.

When coming to an end on this topic, Natalie stressed the importance of learning from 2020 and using this time away from an office to do some self-work.

Managing a Team Remotely: Key Points

Apart from scrapping unconscious biases, Natalie provided some other great advice on how to be successful in managing your team remotely:

• Implementing some agile workflow

Being agile is important, but Natalie doesn’t believe it should be the core focus. She recommended integrating some form of agility amongst her team. This is where you need to think and work quickly. It’s not always possible to work like this 24/7, so Natalie’s suggestion of just some agility could be a helpful way to ensure productivity from everyone.

• 15-minute stand-up

Natalie has introduced a ’15 minute stand-up’ each day for her and her team to catch up and ensure things are running smoothly. The team will meet up and go over what they completed yesterday and what they have planned for the upcoming day. They’ll also look into if anything is blocking them from being productive or finishing a task. It’s also a great way to check in with each other and see if anyone is stuck or needs help.

• Minimize task switching

Another good suggestion made by Natalie was to minimize task switching as much as possible. Every time a team member has to task switch, it provides an opportunity to get off track and become unmotivated. You want to ensure only the tabs for the task at hand are open and being focused on.

• Individual direct reports

Natalie believes that putting negative feedback between two feedback pieces can lead to mixed emotions amongst team members. To amend this, she created a private channel for each team member with an individual direct report. For each report, she’ll put in place a successful channel. This is a way to show team members what they’re succeeding in, providing frequent feedback and in an area that no one else can see. She stressed to make sure that it’s regular and combined with weekly check-ins.

Some added key points provided at the end of Natalie’s interview were directed towards knowing each team member personally. This will allow you to learn about how an individual team member works and processes information. This will create a stronger team and will enable you to become a much more flexible manager.

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