How to Manage Your Remote Workers Effectively

• Author: Bryan Miller
• Posted: 2022-10-12

Although some organizations used remote working technology before the Covid-19 pandemic, the number increased significantly. While managing remote employees, you need to have proper skills to do it successfully.

Remote working offers numerous benefits to you and your staff. However, it may present you with some challenges while leading your team. The following tips will help you overcome the obstacles and enable you to manage your remote employees:

Set Clear Expectations as Early as Possible

When managing your remote employees, it is essential to let them understand your expectations. For instance, you should make it clear to them the time you'd want them to deliver their work, if they should track their working time, among others.

Some managers may expect daily reports of the job, while others may be satisfied with weekly reports. Letting your remote team know what to expect from them from the start will enable all things in the organization to run smoothly.

Write Down Your Communication Process

Even as you share your expectations with individual employees, it is also essential to write down the organization's communication strategy. That will provide the workers with a document to reference. For example, write the issues or questions that require discussion by the team members and those you can tackle through e-mail. Let the remote team understand how soon you expect them to respond to e-mails during working hours.

Keep Constant Communication

Communicate directly with all remote workers at least once each day. You may use instant messaging, e-mail, video, or phone calls. Consistent communication makes remote employees feel part of the organization, boosting their engagement in their work. That will eventually lead to better productivity and performance. Constant interaction with the remote workers will also make them feel motivated and appreciated.

Schedule Periodic Team Meetings

You should always plan periodic meetings for your partially or fully remote workforce. You may schedule virtual meetings and plan activities to enable employees to feel united. Such arrangements would allow workers to create connections, know each other, and have a burden to communicate and work regularly.
In addition, through such meetings, remote employees can share their thoughts regarding work projects. However, you should avoid too many virtual meetings because they may cause tiredness and burnout among the workers. It would be a great idea to communicate with your remote team through e-mails, messaging, and phone calls. You may also make some social meetings optional and leave sometime between scheduled meetings to avoid the fatigue caused by having many virtual meetings.

Be Open and Honest

Many times, employees copy their managers' behaviors in the workplace. For example, being transparent with the workers will make them open and honest with you. Hence, consider including transparency in your organization's culture. It will make it easier for you to build trust with your workforce and make them comfortable to come to you whenever they have concerns or questions.

Make sure you are transparent with all employees. For example, whenever you want to share some news, communicate the same with all employees at once to make your remote team feel part of the office's happenings.

Take Time to Understand Each Team Member

While managing a remote team, take time to understand them as you would those working from the office. Learn more about their interests, hobbies, and dreams. When you call a remote employee, it is normal to feel the need to concentrate on business matters.

However, it is essential to spend a few minutes talking to the worker about personal issues, as you would do to the office staff during in-person meetings. Being free with your virtual staff will make them feel comfortable interacting with you and have a personal connection.

Embrace the Use of Technology to Create a Community

It would be best to incorporate different tools while managing your remote workers. You can use chat tools, screen sharing tools, project management software, time tracking apps, and video conferencing software, among others, for successful remote working operations. You can use the same technology and tools to overcome geographic boundaries.

Introduce tools that encourage face-to-face interactions between your employees to discuss issues not related to work during breaks. Additionally, you may introduce something that you do with the office workers to the remote team. For example, you can wish them a happy birthday through video call, as you would to those working from the office.

If you are not used to managing a remote team, you may face numerous challenges. However, the above tips can help you create an efficient management system that improves communication and provides all remote employees with the proper tools for the strategy's success.