Tips for managing remote employees?

Question

Starting a new job and will be managing a remote employee for the first time.  Any advice on how to create a high functioning team and a strong employee/manager working relationship when one employee is remote?

Anonymous · Answer

I work remotely and my company does a great job with it. Others have not. The things that make a difference: Team meetings - we have a team meeting every other week. It's a video call and everyone needs to 'show their face'. There are about 4 out of 12 of us that are remote. It's a great habit to form and helps everyone connected.   We also have 2 fifteen minute 'sync's each week with a smaller group on video. 'How's everyone doing - what are you working on' quick hits. It's the virtual equivalent of running into each other in the break room, or a stand-up meeting, but really makes a difference to remote workers. You can't go too far astray when you're 'seeing' people at least 2x a week.   I'm very grateful for these baseline interactions.

Anonymous · Answer

I am a remote business starter.

My boss drives me nuts. He also owns the company.

I spend my entire day talking or online connecting and the last thing I want at the end of the week Or first thing on Monday morning is a 1.5 hour rehashing of every conversation I had during the week or planning out the new week.

My job is business building in a new community. Building a CRM. He can  look at the company CRM database and SEE what I’m doing in real time. Where I’m at, who’s been met, Results, whats next.

I work hard, am getting great results. I don’t like getting grilled about every single client. If he were to say “what went really great this week?” And “what sucked?” THAT would be a great conversation.  Then we could talk.

Here’s the rub. I have a huge territory. Perhaps my smart phone makes me less smart personally but when he picks one client out of 400 to ask about? I just don’t know off the top of my head the exact deets of that 
client’s contract.

Guesswork is not my thing. So I say “wait, I have to pull up their contract to get the exacts” then he says “skip it.”

He refuses to read emails. He asks for a plan of action, for example a trade show or exhibit.

I send it to him short sentence bullet format. He’ll call up like he doesn’t have the info right in front of him and say “let’s discuss this”.   I’ll say sure “what do you need to discuss? Which part?” He says all of it.

And then I read to him each bullet.    And explain how it works. It’s a trade show. How mysterious can it be??? Lol

My territory is making Double bank. So my first plan to shut him down Was to overwhelm him with all the details he could possibly need. 
He didn’t want that.

Second plan was to generalize large scope plans into short brief overviews. He didn’t want that.

He just wants to talk.

And his point of talking is the one upmanship game. He just has to do something boss like. Even if it’s just something petty like Finding a misspoken word to correct.

So now, after six months of struggling with him? 
I don’t even try. I know If he asks for an idea he’s not really asking. He has a better idea. So I play his game. He wants to feel boss like I can humor that~ every hour on my clock talking to him? 
Is an hour he pays for.

But honestly I don’t have three hours a week to feed his ego. What I do now? Is send him a daily list. What I did. I save  it right off the CRM and FAX it to him from my phone.

Which is the same as him simply opening up the CRM and pulling up my location.

But he should consider the revenue I’m bringing in and understand this revenue represents people hours travel hours on my end, and as long as the job is getting done and the moneys there?

He should let me run with it and stop wasting my time with 3 hours of phone calls.  I took a job below my huckleberry so to speak. My boss hired an MBA in the field of the franchise he bought;

He has no real knowledge of the industry. It’s easy for me, I don’t require help, I’m good at it. His attempts at mentoring while maybe well intentioned? are annoying.

We got into a huge dog fight last week over the legalities in a contract that I walked out  of leaving  the client and their money on the table due to ethics.

I defined it for him simply as “bad business we cant be part of - this is not what we do, it’s reportable.” He said “we do it here all the time” and his argument was? “As long as no ones complaining, it’s fine.”

So, I expensed out a 15 minute consult with an attorney in our area of business explaining WHY this was bad business and why my license can be jeopardized being part of it.   (How serious this was? A DPOA  wanted one of our employees to ignore the direct wishes of a hospice client who still had agency, using that power to deny comfort to hasten their death.)

This was a no brainer.  We don’t do that.

So. You didn’t need to hear all that. 
But from the get go? If your remote person is making bank? Consider they know what their doing and let them generate revenue with as little contact as possible. Being a self starter on a remote site is an internal quality and usually a point of personal pride of the remote worker; the ability to work independently is at direct odds with  unnecessary ‘bumping’ by management.

IF the results being put forth by the remote employee are yielding great results?? (And no laws are being broken) Stay out of their way and let them work.

A team of TWO is hard. Invite that person to the hub/headquarters if possible to interact with the group. 
Include them in the fun stuff even if they can’t make it. That’s always beneficial.

Define exactly what kind of activity report you want. 
Weekly. 
Daily. From the get go.

If you’ve got the right person on the job? Your job is easy. Stand back,  let them do it, and cheer!

If you’re new to being anyone’s boss? Trust your gut, not what you learned at a seminar, university or a management book.  It’ll get you farther.

sandmanstone · Answer

Practical advice... 
Make sure you have measurable objectives every 90 day or so with your remote person.   (That way, you don't need to worry about things like start / end times, you are both focused on output and results.
Make sure you structure calls / meetings to give everyone (especially the remote person) a chance to speak.
One on Ones are especially important, and make sure you give time to catch up personally and professionally, and you discuss their development and career growth every 3 months or more frequently.
Go visit them if you can, have them come in. 
Talk with them and let them know what you are trying to do, and discuss best ways to reach each other, how they like to get feedback, any concerns they have.  Let them know you'd like their honest perspective if it is working, and if not, what could change.

You've got this!  Christine

Heather Holmes · Answer

I worked remotely for four years. Our team used Slack and Microsoft Teams to communicate.  Once a week my team would meet online. Everyone was required to have their actual face show up on webcam.  Eventually we all got so used to this form of communication we would actually do face to face calls more often than using the phone, or chat app.

Anonymous · Answer

Not sure how your org works, but as someone who was/is remote quite often, having a weekly 1:1 with my direct manager keeps us on the same page and the check-ins always help for building rapport, etc. For group meetings, making sure the person has a working Zoom or Hangouts (or whatever teleconferencing technology you have) link so that it's not an afterthought to hook up and include them. Along with that, checking on audio so that they can contribute/hear you is always key, otherwise they'll feel like they're not part of the team. Other than that, making sure any guidance or updates that are passed around verbally are also communicated to the remote employee via email, shared docs, etc is a good way to keep your whole team on the same page and information captured in concrete form.

Anonymous · Answer

Agree with everyone above and making sure that they are included in team meetings and communication.

At my last job - there were a few remote employees and my manager would frequently have 'desk meetings' with the non-remote folks where we would be told a new protocol with no documentation and just verbally. Then, the remote employees would be out of the loop and there would be different processes happening concurrently.

After feeling that pain - I recommend always writing and documenting things and utilizing things like statuses on your communication channel. For example, if your company uses Slack - utilize the 'in a meeting' status so that if your remote employee messages you they aren't thinking you're ignoring them, but know that you might not reply because you're occupied.

Additionally, making sure that there are times and space for remote folks to come visit the main office to get face time with the team!

cdykstra · Answer

I wrote a Medium article that may have some helpful insights. It is harder when only one team member is remote. https://medium.com/@ccdykstra/how-to-build-trust-in-a-remote-scrum-team-5d61ec11dcd

Anonymous · Answer

I recommend www.flexjobs.com for best practices on managing remote work. The firm Werk is doing really innovative work in this area and one of the pioneers was Cali Yost. All good resources to pass along to your employer or read yourself.

Pat Roque, Rock Star Executive Leadership & Career Strategist · Answer

Having remote teams (or even a single virtual team member) starts an amazing process where you can actually improve your communication and productivity across all of your team, both internal and external. It somewhat forces you to re-examine your process and systems, (eg, are you using antiquated paper trails that are not environmentally friendly and take up silly amounts of physical storage space)? Could you not incorporate technology using things like shared Google drives or a private Intranet, using video conferencing like Zoom where folks are showing up and feeling as though they are sitting side-by-side together?

Across-the-board, it’s important to schedule time for your team and to create a comfortable cadence so that everyone knows the best ways times and methods for reaching out to one another, or are you using Slack or Voxer or an internal messaging system for those short little informal questions that don’t require a formal email?  Are you beyond just scheduling meetings for the sake of meeting but making sure that there is an agenda and a succinct timeline so that time spent together is meaningful and productive?  Those types of best practices will be much appreciated, I promise.

I did my masters thesis on best practices for remote teams in 2001, Before 911 made virtual workforce a desired or much-needed practice to house displaced workers after the tragedy in NYC.
 
Remote employee engagement creates massive opportunities for growth.  Learning how to communicate better and being respectful of the environment can make your entire organization more productive, more engaged, and more profitable. It is a win-win opportunity if you choose to embrace it as such.

Miranda Wilcox · Answer

It sounds like this isn't just about being remote, it's about that one person being remote while others aren't. Assuming you want them to feel like an equal member of the team, consider how you can level the playing field.

Some ideas:
Have team meetings where everyone is on Zoom in their own space
Ask for input from everyone via group chat or email. 
Invite the remote employee to monthly/quarterly in-person team events
Celebrate milestones, birthdays, etc. the same way for everyone--or at a specific time of the year when everyone can participate

Tips for managing remote employees?

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