Manage Your Team Effectively While Working Remotely
Post-pandemic, the world has seen that a remote workforce can lead to more efficiency, more flexible businesses, and happier employees as well as customers. It’s not necessarily easy to implement the remote workforce, however. Businesses have had to adapt to new practices, policies, and challenges to make the most of these potential benefits and avoid the pitfalls. Here are some ideas about how to manage your remote employees so that they and your business thrive.
Find people looking for remote work opportunities
Not everyone appreciates the change from the traditional workplace and office hours. Understanding this and asking for feedback from your team will help you achieve success with your remote working strategies. When hiring new people, ensure to consider how comfortable and willing they will be to work remotely. Take advantage of Leadar, a platform where you can find people with a multitude of skills, many of whom are familiar with remote work and keen to engage in a fulfilling, flexible business relationship.
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Define remote working
For remote working to work, employers need to make it clear what remote working means. Its popularity is relatively new and, as such, there is confusion and a lack of clarity about how the remote workforce operates.
Remote working can mean that the entire staff works offsite all the time, with no one ever setting foot in an office. In other businesses, some team members work remotely, and others are based on-site. Besides, a hybrid model is employed where staff spends some time working remotely and some time working on-site. Various combinations and management styles exist. What’s important is to explore the options to determine what works best for your business and then make those boundaries and opportunities clear to your employees.
Try hybrid working
Be flexible about remote working. Some people may want or need to be on-site. Consider whether this is feasible for those who wish it. Some employees might want to work remotely some of the time and come into the office some of the time. Or you may decide that splitting locations to some extent is obligatory. Whatever the case, be prepared to be flexible to see what works best for your employees, your customers, and your business.
Staff needs social, water-cooler time
Whether in-person (think paint balling or coffee meetups) or online (think group chats, online gaming, or online event participation), remote employees have been known to suffer when they don’t get time to socialize with other staff.
Working in isolation can lead to feelings of loneliness and depression. Having people working in silos can cause a business to lack the creativity of full collaboration. It is key, therefore, for employers to find a way to get staff together regularly, whether on-screen or in-person, to share downtime and creative time.
Give them freedom
The point of remote work is to allow flexibility, so avoid big brother levels of control. While a remote workforce requires managing to make sure that everyone is moving toward the business’s key objectives by fulfilling assigned tasks, most employees are self-motivated and many find that they work better when they can determine their schedules and ways of working in physical environments that suit them. Effective management should aim to provide the objective, determine the schedule and deliverables, but be more hands-off regarding how people achieve those goals.
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Give them structure
Being hands-off doesn’t mean turning your back on remote employees. Managers must still hold staff accountable when they don’t achieve objectives or follow protocol. For remote working to be effective, it’s vital to establish clear goals and transparent remote working policies so that everyone knows what is required, whether that is on a daily basis or on a longer timescale.
Offer resources
The remote workforce tends to need tech to make remote work happen efficiently and effectively. Collaborative cloud software, such as Basecamp (project management) and Salesforce (customer relationship management), help remote teams work together, fix problems, and stay on track. These solutions facilitate the management of remote employees and workflows.
Investing in cloud collaboration technology can make a significant difference to a business. It can be worth paying a premium for known, tested software that has a solid reputation rather than attempting to use an unknown, unvetted solution that gets people bogged down with connection issues, configuration problems, or access limitations.
Offer support
Remote work doesn’t mean people are working alone; “remote” applies to the physical location. Ensure that managers are there for their remote staff, offering support online or by phone, whether for technical help, guidance regarding tasks, or the moral and emotional support that can often be lacking in remote working situations.
Stay secure
Security is one of the major challenges of managing a remote workforce. It was often overlooked during the pandemic as companies scrambled to avoid business disruption due to social restrictions. In hindsight, however, that left behind a host of vulnerable networks that are yet to be remediated by cybersecurity teams.
Protect your workforce and your business by taking the following actions:
- Ensure software and hardware are up-to-date.
- Implement and maintain a firewall and antivirus solution.
- Maintain clear information security policies, with a section on how this applies in remote working situations.
- Maintain a policy regarding the use of employees’ personal devices (are they allowed, must they be vetted, does some software constitute a breach of the information security policy?)
- Provide ongoing training on identifying spam, which is a vector for malware, including ransomware, avoiding unsecured networks, and the importance of data protection for customers and to prevent regulatory compliance issues.
- Use encryption for sensitive information, in transit and at rest.
- Vet your third-party SaaS providers, including any cloud storage and backup firms you use, as well as any businesses providing collaboration software.
Conclusion
Managing remote employees effectively can be challenging. The first step to overcoming the obstacles is to acknowledge them. Fortunately, remote working is far from unknown territory and best practices exist to help the remote workforce get the most out of this potentially efficient and effective working arrangement.
Start with understanding employees’ preferences and seeking feedback. Hire those individuals who are comfortable and experienced in remote work. Explore different models of remote work and determine what works best for your specific needs. Clearly communicate remote work policies to your employees, explaining how their job must be done and how it will be evaluated by the company.
Remember that remote employees need to socialize and connect with colleagues. So, propose both in-person and online social activities to foster a sense of community.
To ensure seamless workflow, set clear goals and expectations while giving your employees a fair amount of autonomy. Additionally, provide them with necessary technology tools as well as regular communication channels for technical assistance, guidance, and emotional support. Finally, it is critical to promptly address the cybersecurity challenges associated with remote work.
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