How To Manage Your Remote Employees
Author: Daniyal Chishti
Having remote employees is an excellent option for many businesses due to flexibility. However, businesses must ensure that the work gets done correctly and efficiently from the onset. Is your company using or considering a remote working model? Read on for some tips on managing remote employees efficiently.
The Right Communication Tools And Software For Remote Employees
A good communication tool is familiar, easy to use, and secure. It should also be cost-effective and allow you to keep your remote employees connected.
- Familiar: Choosing a communication tool that everyone is already familiar with or has a standard interface helps ensure everyone can use it quickly.
- Easy: The best software lets you do what you need without needing an entire training course or manual.
- Secure: If your remote team relies on the internet for communication, ensure that the software you’re using has robust security so no one can hack into your conversations (or worse).
- Cost effective: You’ll want a system that works well but doesn’t cost too much money – and won’t break the bank when times get tough (like during an economic downturn).
Create A Communication Strategy
Communication is a key component in managing remote IT staff. Effective communication allows you to stay on track with your team, maintain high morale among your remote employees and keep up-to-date with industry trends.
To create a communication strategy for your remote IT staff:
- Set expectations about how often you’d like to communicate with them via email or video chat. This will help set guidelines for the expectations from both parties moving forward.
- If any issues need addressing immediately, it’s best to handle them through phone or video calls rather than email to avoid losing valuable time.
Focus On Providing Effective Feedback To Remote Employees
The most important thing you can do to improve performance is promptly provide effective feedback. Remote employees need feedback on their performance as much as office-based employees, but since managing remote teams is a new skill, it can be more difficult for managers to deliver that kind of feedback when they don’t have their team in person.
To ensure that remote workers get the information they need to improve their job performance, make sure that you:
- Provide feedback in a private setting. If possible, provide your remote employees with some privacy, so they don’t feel embarrassed by what you have to say. This could mean giving them some time alone at home or scheduling a meeting at another location away from the workplace if there are other people around who might overhear your conversation.
- Be positive with any criticism delivered privately through e-mail or face-to-face meetings if necessary. Avoid communicating negative comments via instant messaging. When providing criticism over electronic means—you should make it clear what changes would improve productivity and efficiency without sounding harsh or demeaning towards the employee’s work habits or personality traits (e.g., “I’d like it better if we could meet once per week instead of every two weeks.”)
Build Trust With Your Remote Employees
When you trust someone, you believe they can help you achieve your goals. As a manager, your employees should be able to help you reach the company’s overall mission and vision.
But how do they know what’s expected of them? How do they know how to get there? For remote employees to succeed in their roles and contribute effectively, they need clear expectations. This includes a plan for regular discussions with each employee so that everyone knows what’s expected of them on an ongoing basis.
You should also find opportunities for them to demonstrate their skills by assigning tasks as part of their everyday workflow. By doing this regularly and giving feedback on performance after each activity is completed, both sides will gain insight into each other’s strengths and weaknesses—which will build trust over time!
Build Your Company Culture
One of the most important things you can do to manage your remote team is to define your company culture. A strong company culture will help you attract top talent, build trust and reduce turnover.
Defining what makes up the organization’s values and mission statement is an excellent start. The values should be an extension of who you are as a business. Whereas the mission statement describes how that translates into actionable goals for each department (e.g., product management).
The next step is identifying how those goals align with industry best practices and standards, which helps inform decision-making throughout all levels of management within your organization.
Remote Hiring Is The New Norm
Managing remote employees is a new skill that managers need. When working with your remote IT staff, you must build a sense of trust and communication. How can you expect remote employees to work for you if you cannot trust them?
Need help in building a global remote tech dream team? Please share your details with our remote staffing agency experts here and breeze through compliant hiring, onboarding, contracting, and payroll processes via international standards, no matter where your business is based.
