Managing Remote and Virtual Employees

Managing remote and virtual employees is a challenging role. There are personalities to take into account, communication styles people prefer to interface with as well as coaching and training.

We came across this article from the Puget Sound Business Journal written by motivational speaker and Bob Nelson. He brings up some valuable points to take into consideration when managing people remotely.


Build trust with remote and virtual employees

According to a U.S. Labor Department report, about one in 10 employees today has an alternative work arrangement. Managing employees who are not physically located near you is a particular challenge.

Perhaps your employees are located at a different facility or even in a different state (remote employees), or maybe they're telecommuting (virtual employees). Regardless of the reason for the separation, these new "distance" working relationships make it harder for managers to identify and acknowledge desired behavior and performance.

Managers must be more systematic and intentional in looking for opportunities to recognize their employees when those instances are less obvious.

If you are charged with the responsibility of managing remote teams, consider these ideas:

Build a foundation of trust. The starting point in almost any strong working relationship -- virtual or not -- is trust. Without the daily face-to-face contact between manager and employee, trust is more vulnerable to breakdown. Virtual and remote employees, in particular, must know that their managers trust them to carry out everyday work functions, be competent to do the basic job with little or no supervision, and perform to the established standards.

Make time for people. Despite the advances in virtual offices and remote locations, there's no substitute for "face time" when it comes to building trusting relationships. Managing is a people job so, naturally, you need to make time for people. If your employees are in the office infrequently, meeting with them when they are around has to be a higher priority. How time together is spent makes a difference as well. Talk about real issues of importance to employees.

Maintaining a sense of teamwork. When employees are not in the same place, organizations must still create and sustain a strong sense of camaraderie, commitment and collaboration. Managers can take a proactive role in fostering a sense of teamwork by establishing regular times for telephone calls, e-mail messages, teleconferences, videoconferences and computer chats. Electronic message boards can be used for ongoing communication about progress on critical aspects of the team's work. Communicating in these ways gives virtual employees the opportunity to exchange ideas with team members, talk about the problems they may be having, discuss ways to improve, evaluate the team's progress, share ideas, get feedback, brainstorm new ideas, and discuss strategies. Everyone needs a forum in which to share problems and acknowledge successes.

This last point is critical. For team recognition to be effective, you must acknowledge success. If you don't focus on positive results along the way, you won't get more of the same.



Bob Nelson is president of Nelson Motivation Inc. in San Diego and an author of numerous employee business books. Reach him at bnelson@bizjournals.com.

To view this article at it's source, please visit http://www.bizjournals.com/seattle/stories/2003/09/15/smallb4.html

We hope you found this helpful!