But when it’s working, your company’s technology will contribute as much to the worker’s productivity as the worker. One thing that many remote employees worry about is if their manager doesn’t think they’re actually working, but instead at home in their pajamas and watching TV. This is often an example brought up by remote work naysayers, but in reality, remote workers are considered far more productive than colleagues in an office.
Managers should regularly solicit feedback from their remote teams to understand how best to support individual employees, identify areas of potential conflict or friction, build trusted relationships, and drive performance. With remote teams, it’s nearly impossible to over-communicate. Since you aren’t all working together in an office setting, you don’t have the opportunity to collaborate in person, check in at each others’ desks, or chat in the break room to stay up to date. This means you need to find other ways to communicate effectively and clearly. Managing remote employees isn’t without its share of challenges.
Working with remote teams
In 2020, approximately 5.6 million people worked from home in the UK. This is a significant portion of the workforce – 17.4% to be exact. With more and more employers how To manage a remote team witnessing or experiencing the benefits of allowing their employees to work from home, it is no surprise that more people are transitioning to remote working.
Employees should know what is expected of them individually and what is required of them as a team. Everyone should be aware of their responsibilities and any tasks they are required to fulfil. By offering a remote working option, you won’t be limited to people within commuting distance.
Division of Human Resources & Development
Create a plan and work on cultivating a strong culture for the long run. People want to know that they matter—and this doesn’t change when they work outside the office. But working remotely can make it easy for employee contributions to go unnoticed. Slack is a good option for keeping team communication clear and fun—from tracking work and checking in to fostering team connection with water-cooler chats and sub-channels for special interests. There are also challenges to remote work that can impact culture. For example, distance and differing schedules can cause misalignment and miscommunication.
Use one-on-ones to identify opportunities for growth, ensure they have the tools and resources they need to succeed and coach them on ways to improve. When your teams are distributed, it’s easy for the right hand to be ignorant of what the left hand is doing. Misalignment can lead to missed deadlines, unclear accountabilities, miscommunication, and lower quality customer service across the organization. This includes any organizational charts, company benefits packages, training manuals, contracts, employee handbooks, etc. Make sure they have permission to access these documents and walk through them with your employee so they understand how to find the information they need.
Choose your model
While managers may want some proof that employees are actually working, virtual employees worry that “out of sight is out of mind.” He said he didn’t see why they needed to be in the same room all the time. Kohlenberger is now senior HR director, North America, for Glanbia Performance Network, a sports nutrition company in Downers Grove, Ill.
On the other hand, few companies would be better off choosing an entirely on-premises model, given that at least some of their workers need flexibility because of work–life or health constraints. That leaves most companies somewhere in the middle, with a hybrid mix of remote and on-site working. Once you start adding remote employees, it won’t be long before you have people across many time zones. Often, you will get one person that always has calls at awkward times for them.
ive regular feedback
Study online and gain a full CPD certificate posted out to you the very next working day. Check your insurance – Does your liability https://www.globalcloudteam.com/ insurance cover employees working from home? If not, you may have to contact your insurance provider to update your coverage.
- Make sure to read up on and follow working from home best practices.
- In the absence of the kind of watercooler conversations that routinely take place in a traditional workplace, teams can find ways to replicate that experience virtually.
- It could be that only that particular employee is fully remote or that their entire team or company is fully remote.
- My stomach expects I eat at lunchtime and then dinner when I get back home.
- Bring your HR expertise and skills in customer service, innovation and organization to the HR team.
- Health is top of mind right now; it’s the reason remote work became so common.
According to the Trades Union Congress , the average worker spent 221 hours commuting in 2018. Spending an additional hour on top of the working day commuting can reduce productivity, increase stress and tiredness levels and decrease the amount of free time employees have. Working remotely allows employees to work around their other commitments or work to a schedule that best fits them. They can design their workday in a way that also suits the needs of the company. For example, parents can take a break from work to do the school run, while still ensuring they complete their expected tasks for the day. Building remote worker wellbeing into your policies and work culture will not only result in happier, healthier employees, but also reward you with a stronger culture, and a more productive and engaged workforce.
Keep teams together, when possible, and hone the art of team kickoffs
Employees who feel included and fairly treated are more likely to stick around and will have an easier time connecting with their coworkers. Luckily, remote work expands an organization’s opportunities to embrace diversity and inclusion because the talent pool is no longer limited to a specific location. Find out what your remote employees want and expect for their future and have honest conversations about how to help them achieve their goals.
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Create ‘safe’ spaces to learn from mistakes and voice requests
One of the main challenges of managing a remote team is cultivating the kind of connections that come from in-person social gatherings and casual conversations that happen day-to-day in a shared office environment. Being proficient at managing remote employees requires a mental leap, especially for traditionally minded managers. “When it comes to working with remote teams, the key is to allow flexible hours to maintain consistency,” said certified business leadership coach Angela Civitella.