Empowering employees to excel is the key to successful Telecommuting Policy. Conversely, being over-controlling will yield under-performance and resentment. Remote managers are not supervisors – you can’t watch over someone you can’t see. You can’t know that everyone arrived by 8, or is sitting at their desk, by walking down the hall to check on them.
The key to managing remote employees is to be a leader, coach and motivator for your team, which requires generating a high level of respect and trust with them. To ensure developing successful telecommuting policy, provide:
- Clear visions and measurable expectations.
- Team micro-monitoring – an accountability tracking system so that employees can work with minimal supervision.
- A higher level of communication than with a single location team.
- A team community – encourage the team to work together – and lean on each other – which will help in times of crisis or difficult periods.
- Tools to expedite team member competence.
- Proactive rather than reactive coaching.
Stay on track in managing remote employees by consistently reviewing the following checklist of what employees want from a distance manager:
- Coordination rather than control.
- People won’t take responsibility when there is too much control.
- Accessibility. – Carry a cell, return calls ASAP, reply to emails within 24 hours, and let employees know when to expect responses.
- Information without overload. - Communicate completely without “over-meeting.”.
- Feedback instead of advice.
- Fairness over favoritism – don’t play favorites.
- Decisiveness but not intrusive supervision.
- Honesty – encourage trust and build an environment of openness which will drive better results from your employees.
- Concern for development – People want to know that their manager genuinely cares about their development and success.
- Community building – Spend time to create a community among team members so they get to know each other and are part of more than just the current task.
- Respect – respect can be demonstrated by soliciting ideas from your team, entrusting them with the responsibilities to do their jobs correctly and not belittling them.
Jenny Douras © All rights reserved
