How to Retain Remote Employees

Some remote workers consider their position a perk in and of itself. For example, not having to drive to the office on a stormy day can be a big plus. For many in the mobile workforce, though, a more independent work environment can feel like punishment—a disconnection from social interaction and work-related collaboration.

Given this dichotomy, it’s critical that managers of remote workforces learn to identify the differences and deal with them before the employee begins searching for a career elsewhere.

Yes, even in this problematic economy, retaining talent is a critical challenge. While some will be more grateful just to have a job than they would be in a booming economy, others will work that much harder to find something rewarding elsewhere—and they may try to search while on your clock.

While the landscape may have changed, the basics of retaining top talent remain the same—speak to each individual’s needs as much as possible. Following are some tips for optimizing one-on-one interaction with a remote workforce:

1. Encourage (and enforce) an open door communication policy—both when the employee assumes remote worker status and at regular intervals following. Find out upfront the worker’s concerns about the mobile workforce environment, and develop mutually agreeable ways to address them. Then, make sure the manager and employee conduct regular—at least quarterly—check-in sessions to update and address new or changing factors.


2. Offer as many mobile workforce communication and collaboration tools as possible—phone, videoconferencing, online collaboration centers, instant messaging, et al. Some people do best with email and other online tools; others crave voice and/or visual contact. While it’s important to offer a variety of choices, this doesn’t necessarily require a weighty budget. It’s now possible, for instance, to purchase a basic webcam for $35 or less, then subscribe free of charge to Skype or another Internet-enabled video service. For a small investment, a manager can turn phone conferencing into videoconferencing.


3. Be responsive, using individual preferred forms of communication wherever possible. Some employees will opt for email communication; others desire a phone call. Obviously, special circumstances and constraints may affect how you respond—but be sure to get back to an employee as quickly as possible. Perceived lack of responsiveness is a chief cause of employee dissatisfaction and reduced productivity.

By being flexible with how you interact with your mobile workforce, you will likely find that they are more flexible to meeting the needs of the organization.

Jenny Douras © All rights reserved

Remote Employee Management - Fundamentals

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.

1. 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.


2. 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.


3. 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.


4. 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.


5. 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.


6. 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

Building a Team of Remote Employees

Building a Team of Virtual Employees

Distributed workforce employees often struggle to feel included in the company and team. Many remote employees feel left out when they hear of their office or others having such company events as: ditch days, breakfast or lunch brought in, costume contests, birthday celebrations, happy hours, or bring your pet or child to work day.

These social engagements help build community within an office, but there are steps a remote manager can, and must—take to build that culture and community for their team, as well.

Some managers create virtual water coolers to help the team cohere. All that time-consuming small talk that happens at the “water cooler” in office environments has an important purpose that is missed in distributed teams: It builds team camaraderie and culture. A remote manager can find ways to create virtual environment to foster this “small talk.”

Plan a small amount of “open time” at the beginning or end of team conference calls for small talk. Use ice breakers, openers, and getting-to-know-you exercises and games during team gatherings, calls, interactions, et al. This also can include a virtual bulletin board to post “getting to know you” related info about team members. One company sent Starbucks gift cards for their next team call so everyone could have “breakfast together” on the call.

These are some other ideas for bringing your team together.

1. Create and encourage inter-team communication – Communication among a distributed employee base helps build camaraderie. This strengthens the team by fostering an environment of reliance on each other for help, support and ideas. This helps build trust within the team and promotes internal team partnerships to make it stronger and more productive.
   
2. Partner remote employees for projects – Find reasons to partner team employees on projects, especially those that do not always work together. This can include mentoring, developing best practices, or preparing topics to present to the rest of the team on a conference call.
   
3. Re-live the past – Find opportunities to re-live shining moments from the team’s past. This brings back positive memories of the group and will help to renew and reinforce that feeling. This can be highlighting team-wide or single-employee accomplishments or experiences—even funny things that happened when they were last together.
   

A common team-building mistake made by new managers is to pit the team against another in comments and remarks, such as “our team is better than theirs,” or “this is the best team in the company.” This alienates other co-workers and the company. Although competition can be a strong motivator, this approach within the company can have potential future negative effects. What if a member of another team now becomes a member of yours, or vice versa? It will be that much harder to assimilate. Managers should compliment their team without denigrating anyone else.

Jenny Douras © All rights reserved