With more and more business happening online and from home offices, it can be tricky for employers to manage their remote employees. On the one hand, many employees are thriving under the opportunity to work from home, while others might be slacking off or struggling without the right structure and procedures in place.
Below we’ll go through some of our top tips to help employers and HR departments manage their employees effectively.
Don’t Micromanage
Working from home comes with certain perks, like having a bit more flexibility around working hours. And while it’s easy to manage a team member in the same office as you, managing team members remotely can be challenging. Despite the challenges, it is important not to micromanage your team members or employees by demanding progress stats throughout the day.
Set expectations for your team members and then communicate openly and transparently from there. Micromanaging can be stressful for both parties and it can make employees feel that they’re not trusted. Instead, focus on outcomes and goals rather than activity.
Schedule Regular Virtual Meetings
Having regular team meetings is an extremely effective way to foster a sense of unity and connectedness, especially in these strange times. Regular, quick “check-ins” via Slack or Zoom can help get the team on the same page and ready to work.
Focus on Output
As mentioned above, an effective way to manage remote employees, without having to micromanage, is to focus on outcomes and goals rather than activity levels. Unfortunately, some employees may use the time away from work to “slack off”, which is why it is important to make sure that they maintain their output.
Together with your team members or employees, set daily or weekly goals and tasks that need to be met. This way, you can track measurable output rather than activity levels.
Use Technology to your Advantage
There are so many cost-effective, and even free, platforms available online that allow teams to connect and communicate throughout the day. In many cases, when teams are connected digitally, they can function just as effectively as they would if they were sitting next to each other in an office.
Some examples of these platforms include Google Hangouts, Slack, Zoom, and Microsoft Teams.
How Should you Manage Poor Performance with Remote Employees?
Managing poor performance can be demanding in a normal office setting, and doing it remotely brings its own set of hurdles. In our next blog post we’ll discuss how to deal with poor performance remotely; we’ll look at what steps to take to improve underperformance, and finally we’ll unpack the details around holding disciplinary hearings remotely if need be.