Case Study: Remote Team Dynamics (Goodway Group)
Goodway Group, a 100% remote company, recognized that it must foster strong team dynamics to deliver an exceptional employee experience. HR leaders can read this case study to learn how Goodway Group equips its teams with the right tools and resources to steward remote team dynamics.
Overview
The people experience (PX) team at Goodway Group, a 100% remote company since 2007, realized the best business results and purpose for work happens within teams. Instead of directing teams on how to collaborate remotely, the PX team equips teams themselves with the right tools and resources to steward remote team dynamics.
Solution Highlights
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Remote Team Behavior Definition: Goodway Group guides teams to live behaviors critical for remote team success by providing resources, tools and support to connect psychological safety topics to teams’ unique contexts.
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Team Success Partners: Goodway Group uses a dedicated role, team success partner, to support teams to set and improve norms for when, where and how the team will work together remotely.
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Team Health Monitor: Goodway Group empowers teams to take an active role in setting and monitoring team health with a self-calibration exercise.
Challenge
In the hybrid world, organizations face new realities that put team collaboration at risk:
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“On-Air” Environment — More on-screen time creates an “on-air” environment in which employees feel pressured to be polished. For example, employees may feel “in the spotlight” when they speak up. This is a risk for team collaboration if team members are uncomfortable sharing unrefined ideas, making it difficult to brainstorm.
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Team Norms Undefined — In the hybrid world, teams work more flexibly to integrate varying life needs and may adjust where, when and how they collaborate. It’s exhausting for employees to know when team members are available to collaborate, particularly as work patterns change.
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Team Well-Being Compromised — With fewer in-person check-ins, teams have less visibility into team members’ body language and work patterns. This makes it difficult to know when they are struggling. For example, a team member’s caretaking duties may overlap with team meeting times.
How to Lead Remote and Hybrid Software Engineering Teams
Return-to-office mandates have reshaped remote work in software engineering, making hybrid work the norm while sapping motivation. Software engineering leaders must foster emotional connectivity, improve developer experience and build an inspiring product vision to sustain engineers’ passion for their work.
Key Findings
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According to the 2023 Gartner Development Experience and Ecosystem Survey, 84% of developers reported they work in a hybrid environment. With this shift to a hybrid work model, software engineers are satisfied with collaboration within their teams. At the same time, 85% of software engineering team members experience some degree of organizational silos due to poor flow of information.
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Software engineers are frustrated by engineering processes and tools that were not designed for both remote and hybrid work environments as the software development has become even more complex than before. Poor remote engineering processes significantly decrease both performance and motivation, resulting in reduced product quality.
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Remote-only work with few, if any, face-to-face interactions between teammates creates a feeling of isolation and emotional disconnection. This feeling of isolation results in lower team spirit and a diminished sense of belonging.
Recommendations
Software engineering leaders managing remote and hybrid teams must:
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Build an inspiring product vision by constantly communicating the organization’s mission and objectives, and by engaging software engineers in shaping that product vision.
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Improve the remote and hybrid developer experience by investing in modern software architectures, adopting platform engineering and AI developer tools, and reinforcing remote collaboration practices and technologies.
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Support emotional connectivity within teams by creating collective intelligence and promoting psychological safety.
Toolkit: Improving Remote-Team Dynamics (Goodway Group)
Goodway Group, a fully remote company, recognized that it must equip its teams with the right tools and resources to build strong remote team dynamics. HR leaders can use this toolkit as a resource to support teams operating in a remote or hybrid environment.
| Tool | Description |
|---|---|
| Team Charter Play | The Team Charter Play forces the team to answer critical questions about why it exists and how team members want to show up for one another. It includes discussions on how to work together and expectations for each other. This play establishes rules of engagement, which help minimize team conflicts and build trust. Use this guide to: - Introduce and welcome new team members and share the team mission and expectations. - Reset team expectations or create a new mission statement for your team. - Create a vision board for teams that live on team pages or in team spaces as reminders. |
| Team Charter Template | This template accompanies the Team Charter Play. The questions listed in this template should serve as a starting point and can be modified based on team relevance. |
| Work Flexibility Play | Flexibility at work helps employees better balance their work and home lives, and high flexibility leads to higher levels of performance. The Work Flexibility Play is an opportunity for teams to openly discuss their work-life needs. The play and accompanying template help managers customize individuals’ flexibility needs and accommodate them successfully without negatively impacting client needs. This requires teams to set clear expectations and trust that everyone will model the Goodway Group Behaviors. |
| Team Flexibility Template | This template accompanies the Work Flexibility Play. The questions in this template help teams engage in open dialogues about flexibility. This enables teams to better maintain workloads, projects and assignments while brainstorming how that work can be done using flexible options. |
| Retrospective Play | Retrospectives are a chance for teams to reflect on a project or period of work to find areas for improvement. The Retrospective Play helps the team reflect with the spirit of continuous improvement. This activity provides a blame-free review to capture actionable items that improve the work of team members, collectively and individually. Additionally, this tool offers an opportunity to celebrate wins and acknowledge progress. |
| Retrospective Template | This template accompanies the Retrospective Play. The table within this template helps teams capture lessons from the discussion, including areas of success, areas for improvement and action steps to improve on future projects. |