How To Build Trust With Your Nearshore Team: 5 Methods That Really Work
Trust is an essential component of a successful team. Without it, teams are sure to encounter significant challenges to communication, productivity, and collaboration. And while it is important for any organization, building trust is even more important for companies partnering with nearshore teams.
In this article, you’ll learn about how and why you should prioritize building trust with your nearshore team. Here are five tried and tested methods:
- Find the perfect fit for your team
- Make them feel like family
- Take the time to do deep dives
- Tap into the team’s expertise
- Celebrate success
Find the perfect fit for your team
Approach building your nearshore team with the same care and planning you bring to hiring anyone else. Detailing specific requirements for team members can involve a bit of a time investment upfront, but is ultimately a worthy investment, as finding the right fit is critical to the success of your projects. Each team member must have the right technical skills and experience, and their personality must work well with your existing teams. At Gorilla Logic, we know the right questions to ask in order to determine what combination of experience, skills, and personalities our clients need in a team of developers. We help write the job descriptions and work with our clients every step of the way to building a great team. When you invest time into finding the perfect fits, you let everyone on your team know that they really matter, and this helps build trust.
Make them feel like family
Once you’ve established your new team, it’s time to welcome them to the family. This may take a bit of extra work with an outsourced team, but is so important to make sure they feel welcome and included. Invite your nearshore team members to any relevant internal meetings, subscribe them to all internal channels and email distribution lists, and, most importantly, make sure they get all of your company swag! The more ingrained your nearshore team is within the larger company, the greater your results will be. Keeping your nearshore team siloed from everyone else can only hurt the development process.
By ensuring your nearshore team feels like part of the larger family, you are able to develop deeper trust and greater transparency within your team, which often leads to greater productivity and higher quality work.
Take time to do deep dives
No matter how experienced your nearshore team is or how much knowledge they have about a domain, it is important to take the time to provide an intensive overview of the product they’ll work with, the systems they’ll use to get work done, any specifics of your company culture you want them to know, and how you work individually and as a unit. At Gorilla Logic, we organize a detailed onboarding curriculum of our clients’ processes and products so that on day 0, your nearshore team has all the information they need to hit the ground running. To ensure ongoing success, make sure to document and communicate any changes to processes so that the team doesn’t get slowed down. It may also be helpful to schedule a series of meetings with your nearshore team members during their first few weeks so that you can answer any questions they may have and continue getting to know them. Establishing yourself as a resource to your nearshore team helps facilitate trust and greater communication.
Tap into the team’s expertise
Tapping into and maximizing your nearshore team’s expertise is another method of developing trust within your team. At Gorilla Logic, we make sure that every nearshore team is purpose-built to meet the specific business and technical requirements of your organization. So, for example, if testing automation is a critical focus area for you, we’ll make sure that your team comes equipped with an in-depth knowledge of testing automation, and beyond.
When you feel good about the knowledge and capabilities your nearshore team brings to the table, you can grant them the autonomy to do the work they are great at doing. This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t set up regular check-ins with the team and their stakeholders or monitor their progress, but autonomy can allow teams to get a lot of work done quickly and efficiently. It also may lend the added bonus of new projects proposed by the team to address any issues they identify along the way.
Celebrate success
Nearshore teams that are rooted in trust are sure to produce excellent work—and that work should be celebrated! Just as you would with your internal team, make sure to let your nearshore team know often that you value their expertise and appreciate all of the hard work they put into helping your business succeed.
At the end of the day, building trust with your nearshore team is an important precursor to driving better results faster.
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