Best Tips and Practices for Managing Remote Workers

2020 forced many businesses to abandon normal day to day office work and quickly go to a work from home environment. This was a huge management challenge for many teams who were simply not equipped or ever trained on how to migrate through managing a team remotely. Here are some tips on how to improve your relationships and ultimately your productivity of your remote workers.

Here are some tips on how to improve your relationships and ultimately your productivity of remote workers:

Treat Remote employees the same as Local employees. Give Remote employees as much access to you as possible and be as responsive to them as possible. Remember, Local employees will see you walking the halls or will come by your office with questions. Remote employees won’t have this and may feel distant or unseen (out of sight, out of mind). Be generous with praise/acknowledgement/positive reinforcement to avoid this.

Set Clear Expectations.

1. 1. Ensure that you and the remote worker are aware of all upcoming deadlines.
   2. Ensure that both parties have the same end goal in mind. 
   3. Give specific examples of what you expect or need to be done! Eliminate the guessing game and communicate as clearly and often as possible.

Engage regularly.

1. 1. Make it a goal to engage with your Remote workers at least once a day via screen shares, phone check ins, chat threads and even creating “water cooler” type moments. 
   2. Constant interaction will help the Remote workers feel included and a part of the team. 

Measure performance by Outputs rather than inputs.

1. 1. We must become comfortable with giving up some of the control that we often have with employees working solely in office. 
   2. Remote workers won’t be observed while at home so we must rely on assessing performance based on output or goal achievements.
   3. Try to avoid micro-managing

Be a leader not just a manager.

1. 1. Of course we want the work to get done, but we need to remember to Lead, not just Manage. Influence, motivate, and enable others to contribute toward organizational success.

Remote work can be a challenge for both employees and managers but it can also be extremely rewarding and beneficial to both personal and company goals. The key is great communication and working together to achieve results. If you would like to learn more about how to effectively build your remote teams call FLORES today as we are here to strategize with you to achieve at (619) 588-2411.