1. What considerations would you take into account in developing a strategy for managing these remote employees?
Adding these remote employees to your team present unique challenges to management that you may be overlooking. Improving them will improve morale, productivity, and team cohesion.
When you manage remote employees, it’s easy to just talk about what needs to get done and jump off your call, end your chat, and get back to executing. And in some cases, that’s exactly what you should do; if you’re on a tight deadline, fighting a fire, or just having a quick standup meeting that makes sense. However, if that’s all you do, you’re really missing out on a critical part of management.
You must build rapport with every member of your team.Rapport is what will help you work through problems each team member has, trust they can come to you with things important to them, and give you the benefit of the doubt when you make a mistake or an unpopular decision.
Rapport does not come from doing and talking about work.Rapport comes from getting to know them as a complete person.
1. Implement a formal policy. To make sure that everyone is on the same page, work with your HR department to create a policy for remote workers. Include specifics such as when employees can work remotely, the types of tasks that can be completed remotely and the expectations regarding how reachable by phone or email a remote employee should be.
Setting up clear expectations is key to avoiding miscommunication and abuse of policy.
2. Set up instant-messaging systems. Allow employees to communicate with each other from wherever they may be working by investing in a corporate instant-messaging system. This way employees can ask quick questions and send simple reminders instantly without having to send emails. This slightly more productive communication tool will help ensure that constant