The Challenges of Managing a Sales Team in Hybrid and Remote Work Environments

Managing a sales team in a hybrid or remote work environment requires innovative solutions to overcome onboarding and team culture challenges, and leveraging technology like AI and learning platforms can help to set teams up for success.
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Trent Draper
Trent Draper
+15 years in Sales within the education industry, Head International Sales at Get More Brain.
Work­ing remote­ly: Embrac­ing the new nor­mal — pic­ture from Pix­abay

As a sales leader with many years of expe­ri­ence lead­ing glob­al teams, I under­stand the chal­lenges of man­ag­ing a team spread out across dif­fer­ent loca­tions and time zones. In my cur­rent role at Get More Brain, I have spo­ken with sales lead­ers from around the world, and it’s clear that the shift towards hybrid and remote work envi­ron­ments has added an addi­tion­al lay­er of com­plex­i­ty to an already chal­leng­ing role.

A sur­vey con­duct­ed by Buffer found that 98% of remote work­ers would like to work remote­ly at least some of the time for the rest of their careers.

This sta­tis­tic shows that hybrid and remote work envi­ron­ments are not just a trend but a pre­ferred work style that will change the way many view work.

Onboarding and Training Challenges

Man­ag­ing a sales team in today’s hybrid and remote work envi­ron­ment presents a range of chal­lenges, par­tic­u­lar­ly when onboard­ing and train­ing new employ­ees. Build­ing and main­tain­ing a pos­i­tive team cul­ture is also more dif­fi­cult when team mem­bers are phys­i­cal­ly sep­a­rat­ed. When I speak to oth­er lead­ers fac­ing sim­i­lar chal­lenges, I have found that invest­ing in tech­nol­o­gy can be a game chang­er in over­com­ing these obsta­cles.

One of the biggest hur­dles for sales lead­ers in a remote or hybrid work set­ting is ensur­ing that new­ly hired employ­ees are onboard­ed and trained in a con­sis­tent and effec­tive man­ner. With team mem­bers work­ing in dif­fer­ent loca­tions and often in dif­fer­ent time zones, tra­di­tion­al onboard­ing meth­ods can be dif­fi­cult to exe­cute.

How­ev­er, with the right tech­nol­o­gy in place, such as learn­ing plat­forms or vir­tu­al train­ing tools, com­pa­nies can cre­ate a stan­dard­ized process for onboard­ing and train­ing, regard­less of the employee’s loca­tion. As I men­tioned in my pre­vi­ous arti­cle, Empow­er­ing your Sales Team for Suc­cess, an effec­tive onboard­ing process is cru­cial to ensur­ing new hires have the knowl­edge and tools they need to suc­ceed.

Fostering a Positive Team Culture

Cre­at­ing a strong and pos­i­tive team cul­ture is often a chal­lenge in remote or hybrid work set­tings. It can be dif­fi­cult to build cama­raderie and fos­ter a sense of com­mu­ni­ty among phys­i­cal­ly sep­a­rat­ed team mem­bers. How­ev­er, tech­nol­o­gy can also play a role in over­com­ing this chal­lenge. Vir­tu­al team build­ing activ­i­ties or video con­fer­ences can be used to con­nect team mem­bers and build a sense of com­mu­ni­ty despite the dis­tance between them.

The Role of AI in Remote Learning and Development

At the same time, it’s worth not­ing that tech­nol­o­gy can extend beyond vir­tu­al team build­ing and train­ing tools. In my pre­vi­ous arti­cle, Does AI have the poten­tial to put ‘Learn­ing’ back into Learn­ing and Devel­op­ment I explored how AI can play a cru­cial role in pro­vid­ing per­son­al­ized and effec­tive train­ing expe­ri­ences that cater to indi­vid­ual learn­ers’ needs. By lever­ag­ing AI through learn­ing plat­forms like Get More Brain, L&D pro­fes­sion­als can cre­ate more effi­cient, effec­tive, and engag­ing learn­ing expe­ri­ences for their learn­ers. More­over, AI can pro­vide insights into learn­er behav­ior and engage­ment, allow­ing L&D pro­fes­sion­als to adjust their strate­gies and mate­ri­als accord­ing­ly.

Investing in Technology for Sales Team Success

Invest­ing in tech­nol­o­gy like learn­ing plat­forms that enable AI is imper­a­tive for L&D pro­fes­sion­als and sales lead­ers who want to take advan­tage of per­son­al­ized train­ing, feed­back, and insights into learn­er behav­ior and engage­ment. By find­ing the right bal­ance between tech­nol­o­gy and the human touch, we can cre­ate impact­ful learn­ing expe­ri­ences and fos­ter a pos­i­tive team cul­ture that empow­er learn­ers to achieve their goals and dri­ve busi­ness suc­cess.

Conclusion

In sum­ma­ry, man­ag­ing a sales team in a hybrid or remote work envi­ron­ment requires inno­v­a­tive solu­tions to over­come onboard­ing and team cul­ture chal­lenges. By build­ing a strong team cul­ture, pro­vid­ing effec­tive onboard­ing and train­ing, and lever­ag­ing tech­nol­o­gy like AI and learn­ing plat­forms, sales lead­ers and L&D pro­fes­sion­als can set their teams up for suc­cess and achieve their goals even in the face of remote or hybrid work chal­lenges.

This post was first pub­lished on Medi­um.

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