Increasing competition, globalization, mergers and acquisitions and other kinds of pressures are rapidly changing the corporate environment. The result is a more distributed workforce, where employees work from home, on-site or report to managers in different states or even across the world.
Though a manager can no longer simply walk down the hall to talk to team members, the employee’s need for management is no less real. In fact, good management is even more important in remote environments than in traditional cubicles, conference rooms, and break rooms.
This creates new management challenges for those who lead remote teams. A distributed workforce requires different management techniques and skills to keep motivated, productive, on track, and trained.
Although many management techniques and skills parallel those used in managing a centrally based workforce, there are 6 key additional techniques a manager needs to be successful in the remote environment.
- Better communication with Remote Employees - Often managers assume that they will have less communication with their employees when they are remote, but in fact, the reverse is true. Managers of a distributed workforce need more communication with their employees located off site.
Employees who work off-site can feel isolated, and they can have trouble adopting company standards and procedures. They can have higher turn-over, and even develop into loan wolfs that are unwilling to work in teams.
Increased communication counteracts this tendency, and helps each employee cohere with the rest of the company. Whether it comes by e-mail, text message, phone, fax, or a tin can and string, communication is essential. Remote managers need to make sure they are accessible to their employees by multiple avenues. - Establishing respect with Remote Employees
Many remote managers make the mistake of trying to establish their credibility through demands and force— a type of “because I said so” approach. The managers fear their employees aren’t on the job, and this translates into overbearing micromanaging.
But when a manager has the employees’ respect and respects his/her employees in return, everyone benefits and the forcefulness of tone can be lessened.
Respect is created when managers give reasons and explanations for their actions, and the perspectives of the employees are valued. This doesn’t mean a manager needs to evoke consensus, but working to make sure everyone is on board or understands the reasoning behind a change will save time in the long run. - Building a team culture in a virtual office - Employees in a distributed workforce might not even have a desk in the main office, so it is no surprise that they may have trouble feeling like a part of a company or a team. Ironically, this feeling of inclusion is highly important to the success of company initiatives and overall motivation and morale.
Remote managers need to focus consciously on building a team community and culture for their employees. Managers can do this by fostering intra-team communication, creating partnerships amongst remote employees for projects, and by forming virtual water coolers and opportunities for small talk, re-living past successes, humor and experiences. - Creating accountability through self-monitoring - The hardest conundrum for most remote managers is how to ensure that the job is getting done without micro-managing. Many managers can overcompensate for the inherent disconnect of the remote environment by trying to control every aspect of their employee’s day.
This is, of course, counterproductive because it trains employees to be dependent on ever present management, when a remote employee actually needs the exact opposite skill. Remote employees need to be able to work independently, and managers need to train them along this end.
The key to growing an employee to work effectively in a remote environment is to help them be self motivated by providing clearly outlined goals, making them responsible for results, and generating individual accountability plans with a self-monitoring system. - Training Remote Employees - The speed at which a remote employee develops is more important than the speed of a traditional employee because cost of development is so much higher. Underperforming employees and miss hires can slip under the radar much more easily, and this can be very expensive.
On-boarding needs to be thorough and tuned to the employee’s position. Initial training should be conducted with face-to-face mentoring either by the manager or team peers to ensure the employee can work independently as soon as possible.
For all remote employees, on-going mentoring and training is critical to keep them connected to the company, goals and team. It also creates an opportunity to identify performance issues before they have escalated too far. Managers of field teams should think of each employee’s development as a continuous process, and use training as an opportunity for building relationships and evaluating performance. - Disciplining and conflicts - Resolving conflict between remote team members can be more difficult and take longer because there is less opportunity to build relationships and find common ground. The avoidance of good, productive conflict is also very tempting for remote teams who don’t have to interact daily.
Managers need to address conflicts as soon as possible, so the problems cannot grow and cause dissention among the team. It is important to address performance issues with individual employees as soon as possible.
Some remote managers try to ignore these issues until a more convenient time (out of sight, out of mind), but this can be devastating to a team’s morale.
Either someone is doing the extra work, or no one is doing it. Both possibilities are unacceptable.
The remote employee management environment doesn’t need to spell painful transitions for employees and corporations. By appreciating the difference in managing remote employees and implementing these unique skills, companies can be successful despite the challenges.
Jenny Douras © All rights reserved
