Remote work has become a norm in the recent past. Today, due to the COVID-19 pandemic situation that has made social distancing and stay-at-home a harsh reality, businesses worldwide have asked their employees to continue work from home.
This situation has led to unique challenges of its own – one major challenge being how to manage remote employees.
There are several aspects to consider while remote managing your employees. You need to understand the difficulties your remote workers face. A few of the major areas you can look into are – effective communication, focus on productivity, and the use of remote work tools.
In this article, we will discuss the challenges the remote workers face working from home and steps towards better managing your remote workers.
8 Tips For Managing Remote Employees
- Effective Communication Practices
- Tracking Productivity efficiently
- Set expectations from The Start
- Have workplace flexibility
- Listen to your employees
- Create connections with your remote workers
- Celebrate milestones and successes
- Provide the right collaboration Tools
Effective Communication Practices
Effective and regular communication the key to successful remote working teams and successful managers. Communicate often, with clarity and effectively to your entire team with clear expectations. At times, it is OK to over-communicate. But don’t overdo it.
Be available for a phone call or chat communication: Your employee may have a problem or may want to discuss something before moving ahead. Be available for it. Have multiple channels open during scheduled working hours.
Utilize multiple communication channels: Use emails, instant messengers, video chat & conferencing tools, and screen sharing tools to communicate effectively with your remote workers, ensure employee engagement, strengthen communication skills and maintain company culture.
Have scheduled virtual meetings with your team: Always make it a point to have regular meetings with your remote workers. This brings everyone on the same page and creates a group synergy. A video conference is a correct platform for announcing major upgrades and changes.
Tracking Productivity
It is an effective measure of checking if your remote staff is functioning optimally. At the end of the day, you need to obtain a certain level of throughput from your remote workers.
To achieve this, implementing HRIS software can provide real-time insights into employees’ productivity and streamline remote workforce management. By tracking key performance indicators and monitoring work progress, this software ensures maximum efficiency and accountability in remote teams.
Track basic metrics of productivity: It is sensible to track the hours put in by every employee, remote attendance in meetings, and the present status of their assignments. It gives a clear picture of the team members’ individual performance and the team’s overall performance with the goal of increasing productivity.
Manage overlapping time zones effectively: If your remote team is spread over multiple time zones, identify the overlapping time zones, which are to be the most productive hours as this can be a critical factor. Manage these time periods effectively.
Review periodically: Periodically review the performance of every team leader and team member, evaluate the overall performance of the team while giving recognition when due. Compare the expected output with the obtained results and make any necessary changes.
Set expectations from The Start
The employee onboarding process is important and within that process, it is important to provide guidelines, set expectations, and boundaries. A manager or teammate should be there to answer questions that may arise and help the new employee in their role.
Have workplace flexibility
If you have remote workers you will want them to have flexibility in hours. If they are working on a project that does not require customer interaction then there should not be an issue if they prefer to work late at night or early in the morning.
Keep in mind that there should be consistency as well. If, for example, everyone is working as per their hours, most of them may not be available for team meetings or group discussions. This will help with work-life balance.
Listen to your remote employees
It’s important to maintain lines of communication. Ask for feedback from your employees and if possible implement some of their suggestions to alleviate any pain points they may be having.
Create connections with your Remote Workers
Working from home by yourself can get lonely for some people. Be available to employees for quick chats, and maintain an open-door policy. Get creative with video chats or group chat groups etc.
Celebrate milestones and successes
Create video recognition videos, celebrate birthdays, and work milestones that would normally be done in an office environment.
There are even software tools for remote teams that help with this such as Bonusly, Wooboard, Fond, Assembly, and Kudos. These types of tools can help foster social interaction with remote teams.
13 Remote Working Tools for Collaboration
Digital tools for remote teams are your biggest ally in distributed teams. You also want a good way to transfer big files when working remotely. There are a host of productivity tools that you can use to enhance your whole team’s output. Some of them are listed below:
Zoom: It is a video call and conferencing tool suited for remote staff. You can conduct webinars and conference calls through it. It has a multitude of options and is preferred by remote workers for weekly meetings, staying in touch, and having face time with one other. You can also use it for visual cues that may show signs o