10 Important Tips for Managing Remote Employees

Aftab Alam | Updated On - November 16, 2022 |

Read time 4 minutes

Today, managing your workforce at a single place is a thing of the past as the businesses are spreading all over the globe and you are recruiting skillful employees from multiple countries. As per Global Workplace Analytics, providing work-from-home opportunities to your employees may make them more productive. In such a scenario, it becomes challenging to organize the team members and create a sync between them. The managers need to take total control over all the situations and maintain a trust level with each of the team members.

Here are some key tips that you can keep in your mind while managing remote employees;

1. Tell Your Expectations Correctly
   When you assign an employee a remote assignment, then you need to clarify your expectations correctly. There is a difference in doing something ‘quickly’ and ‘well.’ So if you set your agenda clearly, then your employees will recognize what you expect from them. You can provide them some references like articles, emails, newsletters, reports, etc.
2. Engage with the Employees One-on-one
   Even if your employees are working from their homes, they should not feel left out. To ensure this, you can engage with them one-on-one. There are different channels that you can use to communicate with your employees – regularly or periodically like weekly, monthly, or annually. You can also organize multiple events or training for your employee to increase their skill sets. It will make the employees feeling included in the various aspects of the business processes.
3. Treat Your Employees as They are Physically Present
   If you remain available to your remote employees, then they feel that they are physically present in the organization and it works as a morale booster for them. Always remember that your employees have a habit of seeing you regularly in the office premises; so, if you talk to them regularly, then feels the same.
4. Develop a Strong Communication Strategy
   The secret of a productive team is a strong communication strategy. While working from remote, there are multiple channels of communication you can use. You can directly call an individual, create a group, make video calls, ask them to generate daily reports, weekly reports, or monthly reports. Always prioritize the urgent work to maintain a high level of productivity.
5. Do not Think About Multiple Tasks if Possible
   If you think that the remote employees will be better in multi-tasking, then you may be wrong as the employees will have to depend on you for the resources for different tasks. So, if you are giving multiple tasks, you should maintain continuous communication and assign the tasks with clear deadlines.
6. Build a trust-level
   When an individual is working remotely, then he/she can complete some tasks independently but large projects require assistance from the team members. When the remote team members trust each other, then they can work with the same efficiency as they are working together in their office.
7. Create a Physical Get Together Once in a While
   It is good if remote employees can meet or come to the office once in a while. You can organize some meetings, conferences, or parties when all the employees can come and meet each other. So, find various reasons to organize different face-to-face meetings as much as possible. It is an effective method to develop an inter-personal relationship with such team members who do not work together physically.
8. Train the Team Members
   If your remote team needs to work on a new project, then you need to give them proper training so that they can work on it independently. Also, you should ensure that all the employees have all the resources available to them. You can use the video conferencing to give them an online training.
9. Give the Best Tools for Flawless Work and Communication
   Here is a list of different tools that you should have for the remote team for an uninterrupted collaboration and communication;
   • Video Calling (skype).
   • Chat software (Google Hangout).
   • Project Management Software (Slack, Asana, Zoho).
   • HR software for employee self-service.
10. Use a Monitoring Software
    When multiple employees are working from their homes or different geographical locations, then the business owners need some employee monitoring software to track the work. The monitoring software is not to intimidate the employees, but to assist them whenever they require or to stop them from compromising with data security.

Conclusion

Running a remote team is not an easy task as it involves lots of preparation and constant support. But if you follow some important rules, then it will be easy to synchronize the team and run a smooth process. To make your job easier, there is Employee Desktop Live Viewer that will record the activities of the employee’s screens. You can check which employee is working on what kind of project or check his/her progress. You will also be able to download a video based on a date-range and in the AVI format.