Managing Remote Employees - To Summarise
Time management. Pace and organise yourself, and exercise this approach to all your employee. When managing remote employees it is important to have everyone complying to a standard work etiquette.
Know your team. Make sure you spend some face-to-face time with your team, both at work and informally, either through video calling or through personal trips to your remote office.
Share information. Create a shared working environment, with the aid of the cloud even the multinational firms are going remote. Make use of the tools out there, such as MS Sharepoint which allows you to share documents.
Measure. Monitor and track work that people are doing, this is imperative, introduce Status Report or KPIs on a daily or weekly basis. This will build trust and replace the more informal, face-to-face supervision.
Delegate effectively. Set targets and goals objectively, make them measurable such that both you and your remote employees can assess against.
Put a face to the name. Post pictures of your team members on your website, perhaps with a profile, rather like linked in so that people within the organization can learn about each other.
Remote Employees are also known as "Virtual Employees"
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Listen. It is easy to work with someone in your local office, you can see when someone is upset, angry, or bored. However when managing remote employees is a bit more difficult, being on the other end you cannot see, hence you need to listen actively and ask questions to find out how they're doing.
Trust and be trusted. Trust builds when people do what they say they are going to do. You need to be the role model here and deliver on what you promise, likewise for the remote employees.
Let others lead. Let other people run meetings occasionally. This will help build confidence,skills and aid in the share of knowledge.
Get feedback. Appraisals should be done on a regular basis to ensure you are on top of your employees overall performance as well as for your employee to see where they stand with you and within the organization amongst their peers.
Keep a diary. Every employee whether local or remote should keep a schedule of all acitivties,meetings through to task deadlines, make use of online systems such as MS outlook diary etc, make this a standard practice.
Be a role model. Set an example with your own punctuality, commitment, reliability and availability.
Give recognition. This can be a very effective form of motivation, just to write a thank you note or to give praise where it is due.
Ongoing Training. Train managers and employees on your company, product and their job role.Ongoing training is extremely important. Over time this will enhance the quality of your remote employees as well as the quality of the work you are receiving. Don't assume that everyone knows how to do it well – they don't. Individuals may need extra help with, say, writing reports or using IT.
Keep everyone involved. Use techniques to help create a sense of belonging so that everyone can feel part of a larger organization, keep people connected and informed. Don’t isolate people when managing remote employees