Tips for Managing a Remote Physician Liaison Team

Managing a remote physician liaison team for the first time? I have been there & done that. Here’s my cheat sheet.

I have worked from home on and off throughout my career. While managing my own work environment and productivity feels fairly natural to me now, I began managing a team of other remote employees shortly after joining Marketware in 2016. If I am honest, that move required me to make a series of adjustments in how I work and how I lead.

When a team first goes remote, an unfamiliar company and leadership team might wonder how they can know the team is really working when they can’t physically see that work in progress. They may wonder how they are supposed to lead by example when others can’t see them in action. They may also wonder if their teams can collaborate effectively to solve challenges or achieve team goals when they are physically separated from one another. This worry can be compounded when, like me, you are also dealing with team members being in different time zones.

I can tell you from experience it is absolutely possible. There are a couple of things that my team and I have put into place that I think make the remote team model work well for us. And, as a former physician liaison team manager, I wanted to share these with you in case your organization might benefit from these suggestions in the weeks ahead.

Collaborative Technology

Emails and texts are certainly the most frequent ways team members pass information back and forth. There are other great options that physician liaison teams can use to help recreate more “in the moment” check-ins. Our team uses Slack for quick 1-on-1 exchanges, as well as team channels where we can quickly raise our hands to ask questions or ask for support. We also use other collaborative programs like Trello or Jira to manage and communicate the status of key projects. This helps people know when to step in based on their assigned roles. Also, for those teams using physician relationship management software (PRM), you can easily check your team’s progress by having them record virtual activities and track current initiatives.

Effective Web Meetings

Whether you use GoToMeeting, Skype or Zoom to hold your virtual meetings, it’s important to set the stage for effective web meetings. This includes disclosing an agenda prior to your call so everyone can be prepared and in the right mindset, as well as using screen share and annotation tools to help you keep the team engaged and following along from afar.

One of the things I dislike the most about web meetings is the feeling that I am talking into a void. When you are on a conference line, you can’t see others and so it’s easy to get into the habit of doing more showing and telling versus the type of dialogue that naturally occurs in a face-to-face team meeting. One thing my Director of Client Development recently instituted is that all team meetings would include video feed so we could see one another. He also made sure that all meetings occur on the same day of the week for those who find one perk of working from home to be working in yoga pants and no makeup/hair.

This move to meetings with live video feed has been a positive change for our team in several ways. 1st, those who might have normally multi-tasked (guilty) during the call have to be present and stay engaged because there is a camera on them throughout the meeting. Second, we can see one another’s facial expressions which makes it easier to know when someone needs you to slow down or pause for questions or when someone might have something they want to add to the conversation. Third, seeing each other in our natural habitats is like walking into their physical office or pod and seeing what or who is important to them based on the puppy sleeping nearby or the photos surrounding their monitor. This has contributed to my next point which is…

Relationship Building

Leading from a distance can be lonely especially if you, like me, gain energy from brainstorming and building on ideas with others. To minimize silos and feed that part of you that craves connectivity, I strongly encourage you to focus on nurturing relationships–not just with your boss and direct reports but also set aside a block of time to intentionally connect with your peers and others within your organization. Again, I recommend that a mix of these exchanges be face-to-face – especially if the content is sensitive.

Define & Visualize Your KPIs

One thing that can be helpful for remote physician liaison team members is understanding the key outcomes they are responsible for delivering to prove their effectiveness from home. By setting SMART targets and creating related dashboards, you can provide solid visibility into individual and team progress over time.

So, if you haven’t already, kick off your next team meeting asking what goals or priorities each of your team members are focused on today given our current environment. What does the team need to do over the next few weeks to achieve these? Are there smaller, incremental targets you can identify to create opportunities to connect on everyone’s progress over the weeks ahead? These connections can also be used to offer coaching, guidance or moral support for those struggling with working from home. Just be careful to agree upon the right cadence of check-ins, in advance, so that you position yourself as a supportive manager versus a micromanager.

Encourage Balance

Studies from the Harvard Business Review and others show that remote employees often get more done on a task-by-task basis either because they face fewer interruptions or work more collaborative hours (since they don’t always have a set start or end time like their office-based peers).

At this moment, your liaison team is likely adjusting to working remotely full-time for the first time. Even though many have been road warriors and worked independently before social distancing became the cool thing to do, working from home can still be an adjustment. For example, I have three new coworkers (ages 9, 11, and 13) who are working remotely for the first time. They are a little noisier and needier than my past officemates for sure and I am sure that I am not alone in this new normal.

As a leader, having grace during these unusual times and allowing your team members some flexibility can be invaluable. This might mean letting them break up their workday and work some non-traditional hours depending on their childcare situation. It may mean using smartphone apps like Marco Polo to record check-ins at each team member’s convenience. It may also mean encouraging them to set limits on answering emails or calls when it’s technically their personal time. And, it may mean you lead by example, permitting them to seek out that balance (something I need to work on a bit more for sure).

Other Tips to Connect Your Remote Physician Liaison Team

These are just some of the ways that you can use technology, goal setting, and team building to ensure that your remote team continues to feel connected to you and to one another.

For other ideas, check out Kevin Eikenberry and Wayne Turmel’s book The Long-Distance Leader. This guide and some of the tools they offer their readers helped me better understand how to reframe my role and my work style to better support my remote team. Or, you can download our PRM Adoption Tool Kit to help your liaisons turn downtime from fewer field visits into PRM optimization.