Across many different industries and organizations around the world, more employees are working remotely. In many organizations, the traditional office is becoming less of a place where people work. The home office is starting to take over. There are entire companies that work exclusively from home. There are advantages and disadvantages to working remotely, but ask most people who do, they will express that there are tremendous productivity gains experienced. Managing remote workers can be challenging though. In this article, we’re going to talk about three keys to successfully managing remote workers.
Consider Time Zone Differences When Managing Remote Employees
If you are leading a global team, you might be managing remote workers in different time zones and markets. This inevitably brings many challenges to managing remote workers. For example, if you are based in North America, and you have team members who work in Japan or Australia, you are significantly displaced from a time zone perspective. There’s a good chance some of your employees work when you sleep too. How does one connect, coach, and monitor performance remotely when they are working opposite shifts?
Well, the answer is that the manager needs to flex. They need to recognize that they’re going to have to spend some time working outside of their regular hours to provide support managing their remote workers. This comes with the job of leading, supervising, or managing a global team.
The other thing to note, with time zone differences, is that there are going to be gaps in communication too. There will be delays in email responses when managing remote employees. Now, these gaps are something that a leader should recognize and prioritize. Leaders need to prioritize responses for remote team members over those who might work in the office. The quicker that one can respond to somebody working in a completely different time zone, the better it is for everyone. A delayed response to someone in Europe from a leader based in North America creates a delayed response for a customer potentially.
Collaboration Tools & Managing Remote Workers
It completely amazes me how many organizations provide access to collaboration tools, like Slack or Microsoft Teams, but fail to use them effectively. With the latter option, it further boggles my mind that many people have an Office 365 subscription and don’t realize that Teams is available to use. Instead of relying exclusively on email, leaders need to encourage remote team members to use these collaboration tools to foster a more laid back and conversational approach.
Included within a collaboration platform like Microsoft Teams isn’t just instant messaging, but some pretty powerful options like video as well. I highly recommend for everyone working remotely, that leaders use video to communicate whenever possible. Doing so provides a better connection to the office for employees and the team. Between team meetings, 1 on 1’s, or general updates, video can be incredibly powerful.
There’s a good chance that you might not physically see someone who works remotely for an extended period, or ever. Depending on the business and overall budget, there could be a possibility of not seeing a remote employee at your location outside of significant events (interview or initial training). The more you can have a personalized connection with your employee by utilizing video, the better it’s going to be from an engagement perspective when managing remote workers.
Communication – You Are Their Connection
Lastly, it’s important to note that a leader managing remote workers must communicate more with them than others. Sometimes a leader is the best connection for a remote employee with the head office. Leaders know what’s going on in the office and within the organization, or at least I hope they do. Whether its daily check-ins or just having regular communication throughout the day, there is an opportunity for a leader in making sure they’re communicating regularly with those working remotely. Doing so will help ensure a better relationship between the employee and the manager but also ensure that the employee knows what is happening within the company. Remote workers often feel disconnected, so a manager has a responsibility to help limit that as much as possible.
It’s one of the risks of working remotely, and I’ve seen this plenty of times throughout my career, that those who don’t work inside the central office often feel like the invisible man or woman. Unfortunately, as bad as it sounds, if someone isn’t seen and heard, they are sometimes forgotten. Out of sight, out of mind. So, it’s with great power comes great responsibility, and therefore a leader’s role is to make sure that they remember to include those who work remotely. Doing so will make sure that they can manage remote workers more effectively.
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