According to a report jointly published by FlexJobs and Global Workplace Analytics, there has been a 115% increase in full-time U.S remote workers over the past decade. Additionally, Gallup says that 43% of all employees in the U. S work remotely at least occasionally. This makes it crucial to think about how you can effectively manage your remote employees. Here are some tips that can help.
There is no shortage of skilled, talented people today; they are literally everywhere. Hiring individuals based in cities or countries where the company does not have a physical presence is becoming the new norm for organizations. This claim is backed by the research of FlexJobs and Global Workplace Analytics, which says that there has been a 115% increase in full-time remote workers over the past decade.
Gallup— further strengthens this claim by reporting that 43% of all employees in the U.S work remotely at least occasionally. When managed successfully, a remote team can save your company a hell lot of money. Compared to in-house employees, remote workers are happier, more engaged, and often more productive.
As a result, more and more companies today are preferring remote workers over an in-house team. That being said, managing remote workers is often more difficult than managing employees who are physically present in an office or workplace. Studies show that remote employees often suffer due to not being in the same place as their team. Remote workers do not have the same quality of relationships with their coworkers as their in-house counterparts.
However, companies can help their remote employees overcome this challenge by managing them effectively. How can companies do that? Here are 5 tips to effectively manage your remote employees.
Communicate Well
This is the key to effectively managing your remote workers. Since you can’t be with them all the time, it is crucial that you make your message or instructions loud and clear to your remote employees—whether you do it via email, employee chat, or video conferencing. Ideally, you should use visual communication such as video conferencing for this purpose.
Also, when you’re in a meeting with your remote employees, share your screen with them. Also, to make it clear what you expect them to do, use screenshots or diagrams in your emails to the remote employees. You can also use chat platforms to talk about work as a group. Additionally, build rapport with your remote workers by having a casual conversation with them for a few minutes after every work-related meeting. This will keep them motivated to work for you.
Engage Your Remote Employees
There is no doubting that working remotely breeds higher engagement. Employees appreciate the work-life balance they can achieve with a remote working lifestyle. They save valuable time since they don’t have to spend time commuting, which helps increase their productivity. With remote working, employees can fine-tune their work schedule to their most productive hours of the day, while using the downtime to tackle their personal issues.
All this is great news for the remote workers and the company employing them. However, the lack of social connectivity, as it is often seen, can demotivate the remote employees. Yes, there are many collaboration tools available today that can do a great job in bringing people closer in an online environment to break physical barriers. However, the social connection that employees experience in a workplace can never be replicated online. The good news is that there is a way to overcome this challenge.
Companies are advised to encourage and support their remote workers to try co-working spaces or environments where they can be around people that they enjoy being with, even if these people are not co-workers. This will go a long way in keeping the remote workers engaged in their work.
Encourage and Enable Collaboration
Whether you have remote employees or not, it is always good to have a management system in place for sharing documents and files. Some of the names that come to mind are Google Drive and Dropbox. Most companies rely on emails to communicate with their remote workers but you should avoid it. Why is that? they might get lost and your workers may have a hard time tracking the latest version and the changes made.
You need to provide your remote workers the collaboration tools they need to work efficiently and make sure they are on the same page as everyone else. Luckily, there are many tools available today that make it easy for virtual teams to collaborate.
Track Their Work
It is crucial that you implement systems to track the work of your remote employees. Avoid micromanaging your workers. Instead, give them the flexibility they need but don’t completely leave them on their own. Ask your remote employees to enter their work hours and confirm if they are being paid based on these hours. If that is the case, use a time tracking software to see how many hours your remote employees work or spend time surfing the internet. This is important to keep your remote workers productive.
Arrange a Face-to-Face Meet Up
Having a remote team does not mean that you should avoid physical interaction with your employees altogether. No sir/ma’am, you should not do that! Instead, schedule annual-together to have a face-to-face contact with your workers and give them a chance to interact with each other in-person. The occasion cold be a multi-day event, or a simple one-day thing. The idea is to physically gather everyone in one place.
These 5 tips can be extremely helpful in effectively managing your remote employees. For tips on how we can put some technology in place for you to achieve this, get in touch with us today!
by Bobby J Davidson
We love our company and we love what we do. Check out the ‘Why Percento‘ page to learn more: Love of Technology and Business! As the President of Percento Technologies International, I provide day-to-day leadership to the company’s senior management and I am personally involved in the strategy, business development and sales activities of the firm.
The company was founded in 1999 with the purpose of providing a one call source for organizations in need of Enterprise IT Consulting and Management. We also provide a line of products in the boutique Cloud Server space with a touch of high-end website strategy consulting and design services. We personalizes the IT Service experience with a team approach, working with clients from diverse sectors of industry, including energy services, financial, legal, entertainment, healthcare, hospitality, retail and general and/or corporate business.
Our Mission: “Creating innovative IT solutions for business leaders worldwide through cutting edge technologies.”
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