A 2017 study estimated that there are 57.3 million freelance workers in the country. This represents 36% of the U.S workforce. Working remotely is quickly gaining ground among professionals and is at times a necessity for companies with a global outlook.
Managing a team with limited face –time has its own unique set of challenges. However, with a few tweaks and additions to your current tactics, you can ensure your remote employees manage their time better, and that overall productivity is optimized. Here are a few ideas to add to your bag of management tricks.
1. Thorough Project Planning
This is important for any team whether in-house or remote. A properly planned project ensures goals, objectives, and timelines are set and understood by all members of the team. You can borrow the S.M.A.R.T technique for goal setting to guide you.
You can customize this technique to develop individualized work plans for each employee or for each team with common goals. Again, have a smaller template for your remote employees, so they are aware of the overall goals, but then have their individual S.M.A.R.T outlines to work with.
This will narrow down their focus and give them a clear picture of what their role is and what to focus on. This clarity improves productivity on all levels.
2. Keep Track of Your Team’s Time
Remote working comes with flexibility which may bring about laxity. From taking longer lunch breaks to taking unrestricted naps employees can go to any length. The scrutiny and censorship that comes with an office setting are absent. For this reason, you need to have a way to track down your employee’s time.
You, however, need to be careful in how you do this so that you don’t waste too much time tracking your employee’s time logs.
Investing in a reliable time-tracking software can do this efficiently for you. Some of the time-tracking software in the market can track your employee’s time as well as their productivity. If there are any lapses, then you are able to fine-tune these with individual employees and get back on track in terms of productivity.
3. Track Goals
This is an extension of time tracking. Tracking time is good. Tracking time and goals is even better. Assuming you pay your workers by the hour. It’s difficult to monitor how these hours are spent. You might end up being billed for five hours when in reality, the task took half that time.
Whatever your billing method is, ensure to track goals and tasks. Focus on both deliverables as well as time.
To do this more efficiently, assign clear tasks as well as reasonable deadlines to help your employees focus on output. This will ensure the employee remains more focused in order to meet that deadline and deliver as required.
Parkinson ’s Law states that “work expands to fill the time available for its completion.” If you allow 5 hours for a one hour job, it shall take 5 hours. Use your discretion to peg realistic deadlines on tasks.
4. Encourage Bonding Between Your Teams
Teamwork is great in any environment. It is therefore important to encourage bonding because your worker’s attitude towards teamwork with other teams will affect their productivity.
One way to do this is to have a chat room. Encourage team members to keep communication lines open for both formal and informal conversations. Keep workers in the loop on the goings-on at the headquarters. In-house employees and remote employees should have access to the same information at all times.
Ultimately, what this will do is foster a feeling of inclusivity and belonging. These, in turn, will help your employees identify with your organization and its goals. As a result, they will be motivated in meeting organizational objectives. Motivated employees are productive employees.
5. Respect Time Zones
Deadlines are absolutely important. So is workflow continuity. However, be conscious of your workers time zones when issuing deadlines. Ensure your timelines are appropriate so that your employees do not work odd hours. Strictly adhere to their contractual terms. This also goes for conference calls and virtual meetings. Strive to slot these in for an appropriate time for everyone in your teams.
Refraining from initiating conversations after hours is not enough. Neither is refraining from setting deadlines for after-hours. You have to let your employees know this as well.
Ensure they are aware that they are not required to check their email during the night lest they miss a task. Let them know their off hours will remain just that. This will foster a good work-life balance and will go a long way in improving productivity.
6. Communicate
As much as possible, you want to give remote workers the same experience in-office workers have. That requires you to be accessible -within reasonable limits. Ensure to respond to emails in a timely fashion, return phone calls and text back. The reverse might give the impression that remote employees are abandoned or not part of the organization.
As a result, their productivity might take a hit, and this will eventually take a toll on the organization’s central goals. As part of good communication, embrace feedback. Team leaders who have sound time management skills are aware that feedback can improve an employee’s performance. Give feedback on deadlines, quality of work and other such parameters. The goal here is to reinforce the positives and encourage adjustments to increase productivity.
7. Limit Your Meetings
Look at these numbers:
- Employees rate 33% of meetings as unproductive.
- More than $75 billion is spent on unproductive meetings annually.
- There are 25 million meetings daily in the US.
- Middle managers spend 35% of their time in meetings, 50% for upper-level managers.
- Executives consider 67% of meetings to be failures.
Yes, meetings are bad for business. While they remain important for communicating with a large group and collective reasoning, meetings can waste a lot of time and interrupt employee’s concentration.
Before calling for any virtual meeting, ensure it meets the following criteria:
- That the meeting is important and only those who have to be are invited.
- That there is no quicker way to communicate than to hold the meeting.
- That its schedule allows as little time as possible to discuss and conclude the meeting’s agenda.
- That monologues are avoided. Ensure to make the meeting as interactive as possible so that attendees remain engaged.
8. Provide Support
Remote teams can fall through the cracks when it comes to vital support such as training. This should never happen.
The fact that they work remotely makes this even more important because they don’t have the opportunity to tap the next person and ask for help. Sure, this can be done via chat boxes, but this too can be challenging for technical issues. Throw in the time differences between teams and an employee might find themselves stranded for a couple of hours.
This is inefficient, frustrating and overwhelming. None of this will help with your employee’s productivity.
Conclusion
Remote working will only get more popular in the future, and with the benefits it brings to a business in terms of cost, time and convenience, rightly so. Take advantage of this trend by ensuring you have the correct management strategy and tools in place and you will reap the benefits.
