As technology progresses more and more, we are starting to say goodbye to the traditional workplace and employees all over the country are instead choosing anywhere with a plug-in and high-speed Wi-Fi connection as their workspace. This has been a long-term shift in the workforce, with an astonishing 4.7 million U.S. workers now doing their jobs remotely.
While this has been beneficial for a variety of reasons, it does leave managers in every industry wondering how to best manage their team now that there is no central office space. Luckily, managing remote employees can be as easy as managing a local team if the proper steps are taken.
Conduct Weekly Meetings
One of the biggest challenges of managing remote workers is finding a way to make them feel included while they are potentially working hundreds or even thousands of miles away from headquarters. An effective solution to this is to host weekly meetings that coincide with everyone’s schedule.
Having the opportunity to see everyone’s faces over a video conference call instead of exclusively communicating with them through text-based conversations is a great way to try and maintain a stronger connection with remote employees.
Provide Them With Space to Work
When someone doesn’t need to go into the office to work every day, they have to fall back on other locations to do their work. A significant portion of remote employees tend to choose their home as their work location. While this might work for some people, for others it is too full of distractions and makes it hard to create a productive environment to do their work.
Since renting office space for a single remote employee is clearly out of the question, it means that managers need to turn to other methods of providing their remote team with a productive space to work in.
One of the best solutions to this issue is to utilize co-working spaces for remote employees. These communal workspaces are specifically designed for hard-working professionals to use and provide all of the resources that remote employees will need in order to do their job.
By arranging for members of the remote team to do their work in some of the best co-working spaces, managers can help to provide some structure and support to their workday.
Use Software to Keep Track of Time
A major disadvantage of being in charge of a remote team is that the manager is not there to actively monitor how well the employees are using their time. Luckily, this challenge can be largely solved with the help of some timesheet software.
There are plenty of tools out there that are specifically designed to not only keep track of how long employees work on each task but also lay out specific goals and deadlines, as well as give the manager plenty of material to base employee reviews on. This will help to make sure that the employees are able to finish their tasks as quickly as possible, which is not only good for the manager but for the employees as well.
By using all of these tactics, you should find that managing your remote team becomes easier than ever before.
