How to manage remote employees
Kham Inthirath is founder and president of Worcester marketing agency Envision Digital Group, helping local businesses find and connect with their target audiences.
If you're like me, you place an incredible amount of importance on hiring – and retaining – locally based employees.
As the president of Envision Digital Group, I wholly understand the benefit local employees bring to the table. Still, we do turn to remote workers from time to time. It helps us keep up with demand and exposes our team to a wider talent pool.
We're not alone. A growing number of local businesses either rely on, or are considering using, remote workers to help get the job done.
I've made it a point to embrace this trend and find a way to use remote workers as a complementary piece to our local team. What I've learned is unless you know how to manage remote workers, this type of professional relationship could become toxic to your workplace.
Here are a few tips, based on my own personal experiences, that could help you better manage your remote employees.
1. Activity tracking and accountability are key.
Keeping track of the status of each project we manage is a challenge. It becomes more problematic when the person I need to talk with lives in another state (or even time zone).
That's why we rely on web-based project management tools. We use Asana, but there are a number of tools out there including Teamwork, Trello and Basecamp.
2. Find the happy medium between phone calls and emails.
Communicating with remote workers can be complicated. Phone calls aren't always efficient, and emails in 2017 are just not fast enough.
We've established communication channels on both Google Hangouts and Slack, neither of which cost us a dime, as well as Zoom.
3. Don't spend too much time focusing on the when.
Everyone on my team has the flexibility of when to go to work. I have team members who are far more productive at night, while others prefer to wake up at dawn and tackle heavy projects before most other folks get to the office.
I'm not there to micromanage my team. This results in not only increased productivity, but also happier workers.
4. Make sure your remote workers feel like team members.
For the type of work we do, collaboration is key. Asana and Slack help tremendously with this. But it's also on me, as the manager, to include remote workers in all team meetings and to publicly recognize their contributions as I do for my on-site employees.
5. Schedule regular check-ins and face-to-face meetings with your remote workers.
When you hire remote workers, establish weekly one-on-ones to monitor the pulse of your operations.
I also suggest meeting with your remote workers at least once a quarter to build camaraderie among your on-site and remote team members.
6. Get to know your remote workers as people.
I'm well aware that technology can mute the human element. It's easy for me to shoot out Slack messages or assign Asana tasks to my remote workers, without ever asking them about their day.
Engaging with your remote workers is critical. They – like everyone else – want to feel like they're understood and respected.
WBJ Web Partners
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