How not to Fail at Managing Employees Remotely?

Introduction:

The United States and Canada are both countries where remote work is being. Now it has been the most discussed topic of this century. Every company is trying to hire those employees who can effective working remotely and on the other hand, people just prefer remote work because of the facility of staying at home. Employees like to have the option of working remotely for multiple socioeconomic reasons. During the Pandemic, people stayed in their homes for a very long period and this caused them to get familiar with remote work.

Working from home is another term for remote working, as employees can work from home and are not required to come to the company’s office. You’ll have to manage your team remotely if you work for a company that permits employees to work from home. Leading a team that works remotely is referred to as “remote management.”

Remote management include keeping track of your team’s progress on tasks, assigning work to each team member, resolving issues, and answering team members’ inquiries. To stay competitive, working from anywhere has become a perk that businesses must offer to their employees. Remote working has great importance because of the flexible schedule that employees can select for themselves and maintain their work-life balance. Secondly, owners can save money on office resources. Employees also have increasing global knowledge access that may help them learn new knowledge and skills. This may also cause an increase in the productivity and satisfaction of employees.

Benefits:

Remote teams, first and foremost, save time. A lot of time has been spent going around to and from work every day, dealing with other typical office inefficiencies. In many ways, remote teams assist in reducing non-productive work.

It allows you to work from home, from anywhere in the world, and from different regions, using your connected digital tools.

The second benefit of remote working is that it saves money for the company including office maintenance, utility costs etc.

As a result, leading a remote team allows you to spend less money on unprofitable office necessities and more on the things that matter that directly help build team trust and co-operation.

The third benefit of remote working is the potential to bring the finest and brightest together. There is a great amount of knowledge and skill available all around the world, and within remote teams you will be able to find real experts not only in your neighborhood, city or country but all across the world, which will allow you to bring together the best and brightest to generate improved performance for the business.

Many employees are concerned about maintaining a healthy work-life balance. There must be a balance in order to keep employees content and productive at work. And in this way, they may attain the balance and add hours to their days by saving time from their daily travel.

Other than all of the benefits, remote working will engage their employees with their jobs. There will be less chances of missing work day that can be caused due to some emergency. Employees will be able to complete their work hours from anywhere. Allowing flexibility to the employees helps in maintaining high employee retention rates.

Remote employees’ engagement and tracking:

At first, set objectives for your employees. While you’re keeping an eye on your company’s progress, make a list of goals that will help it expand and allocate them to particular employees.

Working from home gives you a lot of independence, but it’s easy to lose track of where they’re going. Setting reasonable, attainable goals is the greatest approach to steer people through their workdays.

Assigning a large aim to a single individual is not a good idea since they may become overwhelmed. Instead, break down major goals into smaller milestones to keep people motivated and track their progress.

Secondly, schedules must be changed when managing a remote staff. While expecting employees to follow to the same schedule as they would in the office may be difficult, providing them the option to work when they are most likely to be productive is the best way to keep them performing at their peak.

Allow them to choose their own schedules unless they are needed to be present at a specified hour.

Thirdly, maintain several avenues for your employees to stay connected. It’s a game where they audio or video connect their peers and communicate on a social wall or channel to stay up to date on everything that’s going on in the company after meetings. The more connected they are, the more they can talk about their job and lives.

Number fourth is insufficient feedback and acknowledgment can be critical. Employee productivity will suffer as a result of working remotely and not being recognized for their efforts. Giving and receiving feedback can save both time and money for you and your employees. It will assist your employees in staying on top of their work habits and when appropriate, allow them to get any issues resolved by management. When feasible, give positive feedback to keep them motivated, satisfied and eager to go to the extra mile.

Effective remote teams can be managed and tracked by using different apps mentioned below. Employees can use them to contract time no matter where they are working, and screenshots can be used to obtain a bird’s eye view perspective of a team members work. Dashboards can display productivity data in real time, and these in-depth reports help you understand how your teams operate best. Clients job reports can be given or invoice them directly, depending on the tools the employees are using. Desk-time, hub-staff, work-plus, time doctor, sky-sea client view can be used to track your employees productivity.

Communication:

In remote teams, communication is the foundation for good teamwork and professional success. Make sure you communicate properly while working remotely because working from home limits your communication possibilities.

Remote teams use a variety of digital communication methods to interact with co-workers and perform jobs. E-mail, chat, video conferencing and work collaboration tools are among the most frequent modes of distant communication, as are all-encompassing remote work environments like unified digital workplace platforms. 

When communication goes down, the productivity suffers. Different aspects are important for maintaining effective communication. The first step is to create a social gathering point, which comprises creating a space for team members to bond, share relevant information, and converse informally.

This could be a team communication tool or a chat-based platform like Slack. The goal is to create a platform that allows team members to build bonds, discuss important stuff and connect to each other. Make a list of tasks that have been completed every day. Catch up calls made on daily basis are very important. This will show your responsive behavior towards their work.

Check-ins with the employees on regular basis. Use visual media to your advantage. Information can be difficult to express through email. Make use of visuals to explain facts, concepts and processes. Have faith in your co-workers. Keep your employees up-to-date on company issues and developments. Listen to your employees. Being able to listen to your employees and taking any comments or feedback seriously is crucial.

Real listening shows respect and helps you to learn about any unresolved issues that you, as an employer, may need to address. If you want outstanding communication to run smoothly throughout your company, you must be accessible. Ensure that all lines of communication are open at all times. The most important is thing is the indication of your employees that how they want to be contacted. Everyone does not speak in the same manner or with the same intensity, so considering the language is really important.

Building strong relationships with employees:

Building strong relationships with your employees is the most important thing to do. To continue to evolve, the managers should conceive the themselves as coaches. They will tell their employees that wherever they are today, it is because of the people who have influenced their lives properly. As their manager, speaking on a regularly basis helps to develop abilities while also strengthening connections.

Debriefing at the end of a project is also important since it allows you to assess what went well and what could be improved.

Facetime can help you build trust in your relationships, whether they are face to face, or via video conferencing. If your employees are less likely to be in the office, arrange your schedule that you are there when they are. If your company operates in this manner, this could be a set time each week or during core hours when everyone is present. If your company runs in this manner, talk about actual issues that are essential to employees, the work or the company in general.

Organize impromptu meetups. Employees will contact you more frequently. If they know you are available, either to let you know what they need or to report a problem in the field. A fast video call is the best approach to speak with them. You may video-conference with numerous people at once, or utilize different services which feature interactive whiteboards and tools that let you know who is paying attention.

Accountability in remote working:

If an employee is accepting responsibilities for their actions this means that they are accountable. Distribution of responsibilities throughout your remote working team and keeping individuals accountable for it is one of the most critical requirements.

As a result, the overall performance is maintained. A lot of struggles are to keep the remote teams accountable. Especially, if there are no standard operating procedures in place.

The following actions will assist in establishing accountability in a remote environment.

To create goals and expectations, effective remote team communication is required. Setting reasonable goals and writing them out in a straightforward and obvious manner keeps the team motivated and eliminates misconceptions.

For better results, create project plans, techniques and objectives and describe in detail. Encourage the employees to communicate properly. Targets should be informed to the employees.

A good way to avoid burnout is tracking their workloads. Making a calendar with team’s tasks, including future meetings and deadlines, is a smart place to start. Management software can also be used to assign tasks, track progress, and manage workloads.

True responsibility focuses on keeping a commitment rather than a list of tasks. It requires making a decision about what to do. So take the initiative, design a strategic approach, and follow through in order to achieve a specific goal. Poor performance on a regular basis is a symptom of larger problems. It could be due to poor time management, insufficient training or much more.

 Early detection of poor performance may assist you in resolving the problem. The main reason for this is that accountability increases employee trust. It also boosts employee productivity and makes them more accountable for even the smallest responsibilities. Employees may fail to satisfy the company’s expectations if there is a lack of responsibility in their work.

Remote employees’ motivation:

Sometimes it is difficult to manage your remote employees. Managers are just concerned with short-term financial gain and fail to recognize the tremendous impact that caring for their team is on the culture, performance, and success of their company’s goals.

The first thing is to check in on a regular basis with each employee individually. By working in co-located team, this is happened naturally but in remote working it is the responsibility of manager to help their employees in the barriers they are encountering.

Make your employees feel that they are free to discuss anything with their leaders or managers. The second step is to intentionally develop connections. This type of thing happens in a co-located team naturally but it is needed to find ways intentionally to encourage employees so that they can share about themselves a little bit in remote working.

Sometimes there should be non-work conversations so that others can learn about themselves.

The third important thing is letting your employees know your intent for the work given. Discuss the important things with your employees and if there will be any problem, motivate them so they can do it in better ways. Give your employees the chance to try new things and address real world challenges, but only after they have been sufficiently trained to achieve a base level of consistent performance.

Common challenges and their solutions:

These are some common challenges that employees face along with their solutions. The first challenge is isolation from others. One of the most common complaints among remote employees is loneliness. It can have a negative impact on their emotional and physical health and can even cause anxiety. So as a solution, make as many daily touches with your employees as you can. Also, plan your remote interactions.

Face to face supervision is lacking, the second challenge. The managers will be concerned that their workers will not work efficiently. And on the other hand, employees may find it difficult to communicate with their leader and receive help from management. This can make remote employees feel as if their managers are out of touch with their requirements. So as a solution, set up regular check-ins on a regular basis. Make project project outline with precise dates, and utilize this time to discuss the current progress.

The third challenge is communication gap. In remote working environments, face-to-face interactions diminishes. Any type of communication should be purposeful. So as a solution, make an attempt to communicate with one another on a frequent basis. Short meetings should be planned by sharing your calendar that will show your availability.

The fourth challenge is when expectations are not clear. Employees may require more directions and clear commands to understand how to achieve their goal. Also they should be clear about when to reply to communication and when to join the meetings. As a solution, when it comes to priorities and performance objectives, set expectations early. Create procedures that are well documented. It is also a good idea to set boundaries and reasonable expectations for attending meetings and responding to work emails and messages.

The fifth challenge is that the productivity is low. While the majority of remote employees feel that working from home boosts their productivity, some are not able to understand it. Working without in-person supervision could be difficult for those workers. So in order to keep them on track, they require additional guidelines and techniques of measuring time and progress. In this case, there may be lack in productivity. As a solution, defined roles and duties should be designed. Set clear timetables and keep everyone informed about who is doing what to create that framework.

Conclusion:

From past years, remote working is in trend. In the near future, it appears that remote work will become the norm. employee schedules should be flexible, and process should be transparent. Make group training meetings a priority and invest in good communication tools. Make obligations and expectations clear. Set up meetings to go over commitments. Encouragement and direction should be regularly provided.

Decrease the feeling of social isolation for your employees. Interact with each of your employee and communicate with them. Flexible schedules can be selected by the employees and in this way they will be able to maintain their work-life balance. Employees will also have a global knowledge access in order to learn new knowledge and skills. Check-ins should be done with the employees on a regular basis. For this, use video conferencing tools and apps. Keep updating about your issues and development to your employees. Also build strong relationship with your employees. Some non-work conversations can be done to keep your employees relaxed. Motivate them for the increase in productivity. Command clear objectives to ignore misconceptions.