Your Company’s Strength is its People – Wherever They Work

Secret to Closing the Gap Between Management and Remote Staff

A recent conversation –
“Is this job 100% remote?”
“No it isn’t”
“In that case I am not interested.”
I have never heard that question and response from a candidate until recently. The pandemic plus technology have changed the labour landscape creating a major management challenge: How do you effectively manage a remote work force?

A few pointers that may help follow.

1) Clarity of expectations – Make sure that your team members understand what you expect of them including a timeline for deliverables. Response times to emails, phone calls and messages as well as when to text for crisis situations should also be very clear.
2) Communications – Scheduled coffee breaks with team members just to interact helps remote members feel included. Encourage spontaneous interactions between employees to increase morale and productivity.
3) Segmentation – Break large projects into shorter segments no longer than 2 weeks so there is a measurable sense of employee accomplishment. Track budgets for projects since projects that are delivered on time are usually also on budget.
4) New team members – Arrange a 20 – 30 minute introduction of the new person to the team. Have the team members describe some of their background and their role on the team. This may need to be scheduled over several days especially if team members are in different time zones.
5) Open door policy – Insure that everyone understands they can approach you regarding issues or queries and that you will be checking in with them to establish informal two way dialogues. Very important to keep up an informal dialogue to reduce feeling of isolation among team members.