COVID-19: 4 Lessons Learnt from Managing Skilio’s Marketing Team Remotely

The global pandemic has caused drastic changes in all our plans. For me, my recall from the NUS Overseas Colleges Programme in Israel saw me completing my internship stint remotely from Singapore. At the same time, Skilio decided to go on our full-time summer sprint, in which we had interns who worked remotely with us throughout the University summer break.

Image: Our first time seeing each other after working remotely for 3 months!

Also read: COVID-19: I Did An Internship In Israel, From Singapore

Being a marketing intern myself in Inception under the NUS Overseas Colleges Programme, my goal this summer was to make my interns’ internship stint an equally (if not better) experience of what I have had gone through, under the guidance of my mentors and supervisors during the programme. On hindsight, this was a novel challenge and a highly-anticipated opportunity for me to have a hand at people management to run my own business full-time.

In this article, I would like to share some of the key lessons I have taken away, having managed my marketing team remotely for the very first time. It hasn’t been a walk in the park, but I’m grateful for the opportunity to have onboard driven and passionate individuals on this learning journey with me!

1. Be clear on the objectives

As a highly purpose-driven company, being intentional in upholding the core purpose of the product is something that cannot be compromised on. Working remotely makes it even more important to over-communicate this objective over and over again, for the team to make targeted marketing efforts towards the beneficiaries of our product.

While managing my marketing team, I made the effort to talk about the objective of our product for multiple personas every departmental meeting, and these objectives have to be highly aligned with the company values. Keeping a task list of every member in the department was also helpful for me, to review this list after every meeting and ensure that every task is aligned to the objectives set, especially of that with the entire company.

Image: Daily task list of what the marketing team is working on

Key lesson: As a team manager, constantly thinking multiple steps ahead of the rate of execution is crucial to aligning work done to objectives. In a remote work setting, alternative forms and channels of communication have to be adopted to ensure consistent high alignment within the team.

2. Focus on the output

Working remotely also means that as a manager, it is more difficult for you to constantly oversee the tasks that your team is working on real-time, and this has to largely be done via check-ins throughout the day. As much as a certain level of handholding is required to set the foundations of departmental operations, I gave my members the space to pick up new pillars of knowledge and think of innovative ways to achieve the same output, while experimenting with various ways to do so.

As an early-stage start-up, this also makes way for a large amount of innovation and flexibility, in exploring refreshing and effective ways to get the job done in many different ways. An example would be the management of our social media platforms. While the intention of our social media platforms was to generate increased brand awareness and engagement, my marketing team had the flexibility to decide the various ways they can achieve these marketing goals. Some new initiatives by the team include our Skilio Seedling Series, as well as our #GrewWithSkilio series, featuring some of the experiences and lessons learnt by Skilio interns during their stints.

Key lesson: While working remotely poses challenges for managers to oversee employee progress, this can be an excellent opportunity to encourage members to unleash their creativity and innovation - in carrying out processes which promote the same outcome (or even better). This has to stem from cultivating trust within the team and still providing members with the support they require to get along with their basic tasks.

3. Emphasise on feedback and recognition

Constructive criticism and comments are always an excellent way to evaluate how you are doing and how you can improve from multiple perspectives. Working remotely does not give us the reason to do away with feedback, instead find alternative channels to seek and provide feedback with more intentionality.

My time in StrengthsTransform as an intern has taught me to value my people and what I can provide them as a manager, which includes a series of coaching and mentoring sessions which I weave into the internship. This makes the internship stint for my members mutually beneficial for both parties, making this a win-win solution by building a pipeline of talent who can contribute to the success of the business.

Some examples of the initiatives which I rolled out during the summer included one to one sessions for all members in the department during the mid and post-internship. During these sessions, I discussed with my interns how they were going to apply their learnings in the plans they had moving forward from the internship.

In Skilio, we value uplifting the people who work with us and allow them to leave Skilio in a better place than they were when they joined us at the very start. As the creators of the Skilio platform, we also used the platform to give each other constructive feedback and recognition with regards to specific milestones that we have attained throughout the journey, to keep track of the team’s soft skill development throughout the experience.

Image: Using the Skilio platform to give my members feedback for the work they do and contributing to their soft skill portfolio!

Key lesson: Employee engagement has proved to have large impacts on company productivity and effectiveness as a whole. As managers, bearing in mind employee growth should be one of the top priorities in driving business growth.

4. Prioritise learning

Last but not least, member learning is one of the key resources that managers should provide their team when getting them to complete the tasks required. Providing members with learning platforms not only value adds to their experiences in the company, but also allows the company to most efficiently adopt best practices from domain experts. In addition, this learning also comes in the form of reflective practice, allowing members to engage in retrospective evaluation about their performance in the company thus far.

In the marketing department, despite most members not having a prior marketing background, the team is able to learn along the way with the provision of online marketing courses (which are increasingly available especially due to the COVID-19 pandemic!). During Skilio’s company-wide meetings, members also take turns to share some of their learnings about the experiences and tasks they were assigned thus far.

Key lesson: While company goals are important, member learning is an equally important goal that managers should strive to attain, in allowing members to perform their tasks better each day. Having the members to apply what they have learnt also allows for greater ownership in the given task for members to produce work of great quality!

In conclusion…

Having managed a department in my business for the first time has in itself been a wonderful experience for me! As mentioned in all the key takeaways above, an overarching lesson I learnt is to invest in our people, as long as they are willing to learn and pick up new skills as they join the company.

Thank you Skilio Marketing for giving me an unforgettable summer, and there is definitely a lot more I have to work on from now on!