Managing Employees With Alternative Work Arrangements
According to a U.S. Labor Department report, about one in ten employees today have an alternative work arrangement. Perhaps your employees are located at a different facility or even in a different state or maybe they're telecommuting. Work is increasingly becoming a state of mind rather than a place to go. Managing employees who are not physically located near you is a particular challenge. In fact, one of the fastest growing company benefits seems to be allowing employees to work from home. In one sense, the result is happier people, but sometimes this arrangement presents a problem: How can we engender a feeling of community, of corporate family, when employees are not necessarily all in the same place? How best can we motivate workers from a distance?
If you are charged with the responsibility of managing remote teams, consider these ideas for fostering productivity among your virtual employees while ensuring that work actually gets complete:
- Hire individuals that have experience with being self-motivated and disciplined.
Former consultants, freelancers, and salespeople are accustomed to dealing with deadlines and working independently.
- 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.
- Avoid micro-management.
It is nearly impossible with a remote staff and it will unnerve anyone that attempts it. Trust that the virtual people are doing the right thing until evidence proves otherwise. If you are paranoid about slacking, hire salaried, rather than hourly, workers or pay per project.
- 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. Encourage and provide feedback on all activities; listen to it!
- 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. Record the team's decisions and commitments to each other. Everyone needs a forum in which to share problems and acknowledge successes.
- Acknowledgement.
This 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.
- Clear Systems.
Spend time developing a system of task lists, schedules and goals with varying time frames and clear deadlines. Spreadsheets and project scheduling software will help employees organize tasks and also serve as a monitoring system. Consistently review status reports with employees to ensure that tasks are completed on time and on budget. Build information sharing (knowledge management initiatives) into the organization's strategic plan. Keep communications in a shared database for use in new member orientation. Design and integrate tools that fit the environment; don't force the team to adapt its behavior to the "latest" software.
- Over-communicate.
Clear systems. Maintain communication with virtual workers via voice, fax, and other electronic methods. Don't become reliant on e-mail since it is too easy to misinterpret or misunderstand the written word. Speak on the phone and schedule face-to-face meetings occasionally where possible. Provide more formal communication than in traditional same time/same place teams.
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About JAS Coaching
JAS Coaching & Training (JASCAT) is a global coaching firm dedicated to helping businesses maintain an expanded capacity for organizational learning, development, and performance to achieve profitable and sustainable business. We help companies achieve:
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