Remote employment is becoming increasingly popular, and for good reason. It can reduce overheads and boost employee morale. But it’s critical to make sure you’re helping your staff to maximize productivity when they’re telecommuting.

In today’s employment world, remote workers are becoming more and more common. And they’re oftentimes even more productive than employees who work from the office, according to a new study from Airtasker.

The facts show that remote employment can help businesses reduce their overhead costs and boost morale amongst their employees. But the reality is that it also comes with its own unique set of challenges and distractions. From loneliness and disconnection from the team to the temptation to run errands and do household chores or the distraction of noisy cafes and coworking spaces, it isn’t always easy.

As an employer, that’s where you come in. It’s important to make sure you’re doing your part to maximize the productivity of your remote employees and setting them up for success.

Here are a few tactics, tips, and tools you can use to do it.  
1. Set Clear Expectations from the Outset

One big challenge with remote work is figuring out the “grey area.” This applies both to leaders, in having less visibility over your employees, as well as for your employees, in having less direct connection with their colleagues.

If you want your remote employees to function well individually, but also as part of a collective team, it’s critical that you set clear expectations from the outset.
This includes things like:

• Eligibility to work remotely
• Formal work hours (or lack thereof)
• Attendance requirements for meetings
• How role success will be measured for remote employees
• How productivity will be measured
• Flexibility for tending to personal matters during the day
• Response times to messages and emails

Another element of this is having defined and measurable goals. This further creates expectations of what's needed to be done, as well as a timeline that employees can work within. It also helps you keep track of their progress.  

While things like work hours and response times are easily quantifiable, benchmarks for success and productivity can be a little less cut and dry. That’s why it’s critical that you find ways to lay out defined and measurable goals for your remote employees and schedule check-ins regularly. This can be things like setting firm deadlines for project progress and having scheduled status update meetings – for example, on a weekly basis to touch base on short-term projects, and monthly or quarterly for longer-term deliverables.

You can also try implementing things like:

• Performance Management Agreements – Create a document that you can work on collaboratively with your employee to map out what their responsibilities are, how success is measured, and what constitutes both standards for success as well as going above and beyond. Then, meet monthly to go through it together.
• Project Management Software – If you want to avoid micromanaging while still keeping an eye on your remote employee’s workload, you might want to implement some kind of project management software. It gives you and your employees clear visibility into the work being done without the need for constant check-ins. If this sounds like something that might be helpful, you might like SmartSheet, a collaborative spreadsheet platform, that can help you track progress on monthly performance, as well as daily and weekly tasks.

2. Keep Lines of Communication Open at All Times
One big risk for remote employees is that they’ll feel alienated from the rest of their team. After all, the lack of daily face time and social office interactions can create a sense of seclusion.

But it also puts a strain on professional communication as well. For instance, when you're in an office, you can easily ask a colleague a quick question or huddle together with your coworker for a brainstorm.

But working remotely means having to find effective ways to talk to your team in order to overcome roadblocks, avoid misunderstandings, and ensure everyone is aligned with their responsibilities.  

To maintain great communication, you can try things like: 

1. Video Conferencing – It isn’t face-to-face, but it’s pretty close! Zoom is a great platform for video chats – you can invite multiple teammates in for a meeting and even record your conversation for reference, if needed.
2. Text-Based Chat - Sure, phone calls are great – but tools like Slack allow you to chat in real-time and keep in touch with your coworkers without interrupting them. You can also share documents within the program, too. The benefits don’t just stop and quick communication, though. It also allows colleagues to supplement some of the office banter and chit-chat they might be missing in order to continue building a rapport. And as a leader, it’s important that you support this – even if it feels counterintuitive. Even things like small talk and sharing GIFs can help build vital personal connections between employees working in different places.

 

1. Document Sharing - If your job requires any sort of collaboration, programs like SharePoint allow you to easily create, edit, and share documents back and forth between your team. Microsoft Office apps like Word, Excel, and PowerPoint are also integrated into it.

3. Give Remote Employees the Tech Tools They Need to Succeed
Remote professionals rely heavily on technology in order to be effective at their job. Poor quality technology can slow their pace of work, bog down their ability to communicate and make frustrations skyrocket. There’s nothing like a slow computer, glitchy video conferencing, or challenges hearing on conference calls to drive remote employees up the wall.
As an employer, it's your responsibility to make sure that your team is set up with the tools they need to succeed. Their productivity can depend on it.

Consider things like:

• Network access: The remote work experience should feel seamless. Your offsite employees’ home office should have all the functionalities of your real office. For example, easy access to the company network is a necessity. That’s why these things exist:
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  • Virtual Private Networks: Also known as VPNs, they provide private encrypted access between a remote user and your company network. Pros? The user is accessing their own domain account, including all the privileges normally associated with that account. But a common con is that the service can be laggy and expensive.
  • Remote Desktops: These allow you to connect directly with another computer from anywhere. On the plus side, they’re often free and are generally very easy to use. The give is that they’re potentially not as secure as their private network counterpart.
• A quality computer: Considering their computer will likely be their headquarters for remote work, it’s important that your off-site employees have high-quality hardware. Consider whether one single laptop monitor is enough of if they’ll need additional screens. They’ll also probably need things like a webcam or a headset.
• Appropriate software: Do they have the programs they need to do their job downloaded to their computer? If not, make sure that the software is easily and readily available.
• Tech support: It’s imperative that your remote employees have easy and efficient access to high-quality tech support. If something goes wrong with their computer, they’re going to need somebody to jump on and fix it – quickly. Big delays can be costly to productivity, not to mention frustrating. Search for a tech support provider who can remotely access your employee’s computer to make any necessary fixes.

There are a ton of options out there for tools you can use to help your virtual team manage their tasks efficiently and stay organized. You might want to check out: 

• Outlook Calendar: This popular tool is great for setting up meetings, appointments, and reminders. If your company already uses Outlook for email, take advantage of this easy-to-use function.
• Trello: A favorite among remote workers for good reason, this project management program helps you make lists, organize your work, and allows you to share it with your coworkers.
• Every Time Zone: Even in the United States and Canada, you can have significant time differences between employees working on different coasts – and it can get confusing. Every Time Zone is a simple tool that allows you to see what time zone your clients, bosses or coworkers are in all over the country – and world.

4. Actively Support and Prioritize Time Management

Time management is tough enough at an office full of colleagues. It’s even harder when you’re working remotely with no coworkers to gauge by, no on-site manager to check-in, and no punch clock.

For remote employees, creating the structure and accountability needed to practice effective time management can be extremely difficult. That’s why it’s important for you, as a manager, to help make it easier for them.
Here are some tips on how to help keep your remote employees accountable:  

• Encourage the creation of micro-goals: Work with your remote employees to set micro-goals to help keep them moving. Big, long-term goals can be harder to lose track of or procrastinate on. Having daily micro-goals can keep your employees stay focused and accountable in small increments, in turn helping them reach the overall end goal.
• Don’t Skip Out on Two-Way Feedback: Take every opportunity to provide feedback – both positive and constructive. Praise wins big and small but also don’t shy away from giving honest feedback about opportunities for growth and development. It’s important to hold remote employees accountable through an unbiased lens. It can also be effective to have them provide feedback on themselves and use it as a jumping-off point for your discussion. You can also have other team members provide feedback, too.

Another important tip for remote time management? Always make a to-do list. A tool like Todoist will help remote workers keep track of deadlines and responsibilities.

With remote employment on the rise, it’s a great opportunity for organizations to capitalize in order to reduce overheads and boost employee morale and productivity. But it’s also important that employers take the responsibility and initiative to ensure that both the organization and the remote employee are set up for success. 

At Outback Team Building and Training, we offer a ton of team building, training and development, and coaching and consulting solutions to help create a more cohesive and effective remote team. If you'd like to learn more, just get in touch with us.