5 Principles for Managing Remote Employees

June 20, 2021 - 7 min read

Brianna Hansen

It's no surprise that technology has changed the way we work. From taking notes and researching to shopping and video chatting with your pet while you're away, our way of life is nearly 100% reliant on the web.

So when Marissa Mayer infamously banned Yahoo employees from working from home in 2013, the working world was all asking the same question: are employees more or less productive when they work remotely?

Let's look at the remote working statistics. In a study conducted by Nicholas Bloom and James Liang, comparing at-home employees with in-office ones, the at-home workers were happier, less likely to quit, and more productive. Not only that, but it was estimated that the participating company saved $1,900 in office furniture per employee for the nine months.

So, great! Let's all work remotely! What's the problem?

The problem occurs when managers are so used to being around their employees physically, they don't know how to transition to managing a remote team.

Tracking and managing accountability, productivity, and priorities can become extremely difficult when team members are remote, especially when that team is spread across various time zones.

We've put together a list of tips to help you get a handle on the chaos of remote collaboration, while keeping your team productive and happy from the comfort of their own home.

How to Effectively Manage Remote Employees

1. Hire the right people.

Working remotely isn't for everyone. Some people enjoy the socializing aspect of an office and need that type of environment to be productive.

Others might believe they work better from home, but need to be carefully monitored in order to be productive. Some people just can't stay focused in the presence of multiple distractions.

When interviewing candidates, make sure to be detailed about the role and expectations you'll have while they're telecommuting. Ask them if they've held other remote roles, and be clear and upfront about how you're planning on measuring their outcomes. If different time zones are involved, work out a schedule that works for both of you — and stick to it!

2. Adopt the proper tools.

Your remote team will not survive on prehistoric tools like weekly status meetings and emails. Without the ability to simply walk over to someone's desk to briefly touch base before a call, there needs to be a way to collaborate quickly and efficiently.

Simplify your collaboration by adopting a work management solution so communication is always accessible and seamless. Work management tools make it easy to edit, review, and approve documents in real time — eliminating the need to play "attachment tag" and pass documents back and forth via email.

3. Address accountability.

One of the most common fears among managers when their employees work remotely is tracking productivity. Not being close to them in proximity means not knowing if their fingers are on the keyboard or on the TV remote.

In truth, there's no way to prevent this from happening, but there is a way to set goals and track productivity. Having visibility into your team's workload is crucial to measuring outcomes.

With a clear view of all your team's tasks for the week, you can track task progress and see who's overloaded and who's got some free time. With an understanding that your remote team has their work cut out for them, and visibility into the progress of that work, you can rest easy.

4. Build trust.

You don't necessarily need an office full of employees to be micromanager. Coinciding with the previous point, building trust amongst your remote team is an absolute necessity to running efficiently. If you're hovering over your team and constantly asking them what they're working on right now, you're simply cutting into their productivity and concentration.

Make sure you divide one-on-ones and status meetings and take time to give each remote individual some personal attention. Schedule calls to touch base and check in on how you can help make them more productive. Are they too overloaded? Underloaded? What skills do they wish to strengthen?

It's also important to ensure that the proper working-from-home policy and procedures are in place. Building trust with your team means that they know where they stand with their employer, and are comfortable with what is expected of them while working remotely.

When addressing their concerns not only as a team but at the individual level, your remote employees will feel much more comfortable coming to you with questions as well as care more about their output.

5. Prioritize team building.

You don't always need to be together physically to work on team building. In fact, it's probably more important to prioritize team building when you're remote, since there aren't many opportunities to spend time together.

We've put together a whole list of fun team building games; here are a few you can do remotely:

1. Whose Office Is It, Anyway?: Have your team members send a photo of their home office setup, and then have everyone guess whose workspace is whose. Keep the game going with photos of everyone’s coffee mugs, desktop backgrounds, or the view outside their window.

2. Conference Call Trivia: Divide into teams and play trivia. You can find good trivia questions and answers online, or pull out some Trivial Pursuit cards. It’s a great way to learn about people’s non-work interests and personalities.

3. Online Multiplayer Games: Pick a game that will let your team work together to strategize and problem solve, like Travian or 1066, or browse the many free and paid co-op games on Steam. Use your computer’s built-in microphone and speakers to chat, or use headsets.

4. Charades or Catchphrase via Video Hangout or Skype: Divide your group into two teams, and play classic party games like Charades or Catchphrase via video call. You can send everyone the link to an online Charades or Catchphrase ideas generator that will provide word prompts for you.

5. Online Karaoke Party: Let loose with an online karaoke party! Use the built-in microphones and speakers on your computers to challenge teammates to a karaoke battle, compare high scores, or just have fun showing off your singing skills.

Remote Doesn't Mean Absent

Even if only a few of your employees are remote, it's important to make sure they're getting the same amount of attention as your in-office employees. Take the time to hire the right people, invest in the proper tools, and gain trust both ways. If you do, you'll soon see productivity soar with everyone working in tandem, plus a significant boost in happiness with the ease and flexibility of working from anywhere.

Working from home causing too many distractions? Take a look at how you can improve your home office to maximize productivity.

Brianna Hansen

Brianna is a former Content Marketing Manager of Wrike. When she’s not writing about collaboration and team building games, you’ll find her in the kitchen testing out the latest recipes, sharing her favorite wine with friends, or playing with her two cats.

#Remote Work #Remote Teams

Leadership 5 min read

3 Ways to Ensure the Success of Your Remote Workers

How can you ensure the success of your remote workforce? Being in a software startup where remote work is part of daily life, we get asked how to successfully work from home a lot — by job applicants and peers alike. It's a situation that's near and dear to our heart as Wrike was created to solve collaboration issues among remote team members. So when people ask how they can ensure the success of their remote workers, we draw from our own experience. This is how we set up our virtual teams for success in Wrike. 1. Nurture a Communication Culture It’s important to have an office culture that makes it easy for an employee to communicate with everyone else whether they’re working in the office or working remotely. The remote worker should be able to communicate with the rest of the team in an easy way using the agreed-upon technology. Here at Wrike, we strongly believe that the three basic technologies for remote work are: A work management platform (such as Wrike) A file editing system (such as Google Docs/Drive), and A screensharing/voice chat software (such as Skype or Google Hangouts). It should be made clear to everyone in the company that “These are the main tools we use for communication.” And if it's not in these tools, it wasn't communicated properly. Get people used to using the tool and communicating when there's a roadblock. In the same vein, get everyone into the habit of sharing their small successes and victories. It serves as an awesome motivator. It’s easy for remote workers to feel like cogs in a machine being given orders. Communication helps maintain a good human relationship with them so that they know they are valuable members of the team. 2. Set Metrics How can you measure success for the remote worker? Metrics. Metrics can help you evaluate the success of your remote workers, but try to boil it down to the metric that really matters. Take our support team as an example: we measure the time it takes to respond to a ticket, how long it takes to resolve, how many tickets come at which time of day, and many more, the most important one for our support organization is our Customer Satisfaction (CSAT) score. As long as our CSAT score is high, we can safely assume that all individual contributors are performing at a high level. But we have the data available to report on individuals or subgroups if needed. And by comparing metrics from week to week, we can monitor how well we're improving our customer support processes. 3. Ensure Face-to-Face Interaction Happens Here's a truth you need to face even when working with a virtual team: nothing can replace in-person interaction. So find a way to meet regularly. Or at the very least, be able to see each other's faces on a regular basis via webcams. Some suggestions: a) Make webcams a necessity for remote workers. Being able to talk to someone's face is essential to building camaraderie and reading non-verbal communication. b) Call instead of write. Remote workers tend to write a lot of emails, and this takes time. If you want to speed up the process, opt for voice communications and video calls over emailing or instant messaging. c) Schedule times throughout the year to actually meet in person. Being able to work side-by-side in the same office environment for 3 to 5 days at a time can provide a better understanding of your teammates' habits and personalities. How Do You Make Remote Teamwork A Success? Remote work will always be a challenging situation for both the company and the individual worker. But following these guidelines will help ensure that your remote workers are given the chance to succeed at their work — despite the distance. Using a work management tool like Wrike that supports seamless remote working can be a gamechanger for dispersed teams. Keep track of projects, streamline your workflow and improve teamwork, all on one platform. Image credits: Geekgrind on Flickr. Some rights reserved.

Leadership 5 min read

The Secret Ingredients of a Successful Distributed Team

Today, more and more companies manage their projects across multiple locations, taking advantage of new technologies and global talent to take their projects to the next level. But while remote teams enjoy many advantages, one of the central challenges they face is that of communication. Co-located team members have many opportunities to interact, whether it's through structured meetings or informal conversations that lead to new ideas. But members of a distributed team have to be much more intentional about communicating and keeping everyone in the loop. For project manager wondering how to manage remote workers, keeping everyone on the same page is essential to ensuring the team can quickly respond to any changes that may occur. Obviously, any project team has its own working style and unique challenges. For instance, an established marketing department will have a different process than an ad hoc creative team that's been created to work with remote consultants on a specific campaign. However, according to my experience managing distributed teams, there are four key factors that are important for any kind of remote collaboration.Source: Daxx.com, Chanty Inc. Set Ground Rules Establishing a set of ground rules for work processes, communication, and team organization will save you a ton of time when it comes to keeping your team up to date and on the same page. For example, ground rules stipulate when and how joint meetings are held, how the team logs their working hours, and how colleagues report on their everyday work and any roadblocks that are delaying progress. By setting and sticking to the same rules, you minimize the risk of something important slipping through the cracks. Closely Manage Workloads It’s fair to say that maintaining control is more challenging with a distributed team than a co-located one. To optimize your team's productivity and avoid any duplicate efforts, keep a close watch on your team's workload and be very clear about assignments and responsibilities. If the task is a new and non-typical one, make sure the assignee has a clear understanding of the goals and what output is expected upon completion. Also, check whether you share the same vision of project priorities and where the new task stands among them. Maintain Constant Communication Remote team members must have a convenient way to communicate with their manager and with each other. It’s vital to keep ideas flowing, deadlines and responsibilities clear, and handoffs and workflows transparent. Keeping open lines of communication also ensures that plans and updates aren’t spread across everyone's email or personal storage, but get shared with everyone involved. Good communication helps establish a positive team atmosphere and culture of collaboration. Apart from discussing work-related questions, encourage your team to share personal news, funny articles, vacation photos, etc. I also believe that relationships between remote colleagues greatly benefit from the occasional face-to-face meeting, so try to bring everyone together in-person, even if it's just once or twice a year. Source: Daxx.com, Chanty Inc. Leverage the Right Technologies Following these tips will be much easier if your team takes advantage of technology that supports remote collaboration. Cloud-based collaboration apps can turn colleagues who are spread across the globe into a powerful team that benefits from collective intelligence. They help make up-to-date information visible to colleagues at any time, even if several projects are running simultaneously. They help users break down silos, keep work data and updates easily accessible, and make it easy for adjust their work. For the project manager, this is the foundation of good decision-making. Leading a Successful Distributed Team Have you had experience leading a distributed team? What do you think is the secret ingredient of successful remote collaboration? Read more tips on keeping your remote workers engaged, productive, and happy.

Leadership 5 min read

3 Strategies for Bringing a Distributed Team Member On Board

On our first day at a new job, we observe everything that is happening in the office and start to understand what is okay and what it is not allowed. We start building a mental map of what things are like in the office so that we can adapt faster. We notice if the receptionist is smiling or appears cranky, we look inside the meeting rooms and see if people are engaged and speaking or if they have their heads down, we look at people working at their desks and observe whether they have their feet propped up on the table or are focused on work, and we start to get to know them by what they have on their walls, desks, etc. But what happens when we join a distributed team? Nothing is visible to us, so we cannot build the mental map that typically helps us adapt to a new place and that gives us confidence to feel strong in a new environment. How can companies with distributed team members help them adapt to the virtual environment? 1. Use video ALWAYS! Start with the obvious: If your company has a physical location, substitute walking through the corridors and peeking through the glass doors of meeting rooms with a virtual tour of the office. If all of your team is remote, do all meetings with video. It is quite common for employees to object to the use of video. But when bringing a new member on board, make sure he/she uses video from the very first day. Video will help both of you in many ways: Better communication: 80% of the messages we receive come from body language. Building trust: We only trust people that we know, so video helps us gain more information about a person. Have a quick introductory meeting with the entire team, and while the new person receives training, have 1:1 meetings with the other team members. Get your message through: Intercall conducted a study showing that 65% of us do other work during conference calls without video, 55% eat or prepare food, and 47% go to the restroom! If you want people to actually pay full attention, use video. Break the geographical distance. If your team is multicultural, you are probably dealing with a variety of accents; body language will help you understand better what the others are saying. 2. Put everything in writing Document everything you say. Our attention spans are short even when we have somebody in front of us, so imagine what it is like when the other person is in a different country, being viewed through a little screen! Do not expect new team members to remember everything you say. Training somebody from a distance is not the same as training somebody in an office; you need to communicate better and more often. Provide common ground rules Your job is to guide the newcomer; the purpose is not to give him/her rules that shouldn’t be broken, but to show the person how you work, what is expected of him/her, what to expect from you and your company, and how you are currently playing. If there are rules are there to be broken in your company, say so, and at least show them how you work at the moment. During the first days, your job is to provide a solid ground where he/she can understand the new environment. Prepare a handbook with graphic documentation Avoid, at all costs, handbooks with a lot of text. Have your design team work on the handbook to make it attractive, easy to remember, and navigate. Keep visual records of meetings During meetings, use online whiteboards, and if trainings are complicated, record the trainings and have them available for people to check at any point in time. 3. Repetition is key You will need to repeat concepts and ideas more than usual because those ideas are not being reinforced in the same way that they would be if he/she was in the same office as the rest of the team. Repeat, but be creative when you do so: Create exercises for the new person to solve so you have a good excuse to repeat some ideas that were not clear. Give him/her small challenges one at a time. During your trainings, always summarize the most important points seen in the previous training. During every meeting, find a different example that explains the purpose of his/her job and why it is important. If those examples have to do with real customers or real team members, that’s even better! Daily mentoring Distance and a lack of bonding make distributed teams rust and break. If you create strong ties between team members from the very beginning, you will have done a lot. If your work methodology doesn’t include daily meetings, make sure that during the first 2 weeks the new team member meets with somebody at least once per day. The meetings should always include the following parts: Fun virtual icebreakers Questions about previous meetings and feedback about past challenges A main topic A new challenge proposal A fun, short activity to end on a high note Using solo mentors can be a good way to organize the transition of a new team member, but it can also create some unhealthy dependencies; remember that you can also have meetings that include different people so that the new team member sees all the colors of your team! Author Bio Anna Danes is the CEO of Managing Virtual Teams, where she consults for companies with global teams. Having worked and studied in different European countries, Asia, and the US, she provides a multicultural take on business. Follow her on Twitter: @virtualteams Download our free eBook If you want more advice on how to efficiently and successfully manage your remote team, download our free eBook: The Art of Staying Productive Across Distance

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5 Principles for Managing Remote Employees