Manage Remote Employees in Efficient Ways

The Coronavirus pandemic has led to a variety of organizations to designate all employees as remote. Many businesses understand the importance of running the business as usual even if it means everyone works from home. Therefore, some IT companies have been providing remote IT support for running their business and work from home programs during this pandemic crisis, so that the employees could work smoothly.

There are companies that have realized their employees are actually more productive from home. Eliminating meetings that can be replaced by emails is one reason productivity can increase. The chatty coworker is also no longer as a distraction when working remotely. There can be an abundance of distractions at home without a designated office. Managing remote employees is far different than managing physical employees. The following are ways to motivate and get the best out of your employees when they are working remotely.

Clear Agenda Daily

Being able to give employees a list of things that they are expected to do each day needs to be handled carefully. Giving them too much work can overwhelm them while you do not want to underload them in terms of daily work. The creation of bonus tasks that a person can complete daily should suffice. The tasks will be for those employees that seem to get into the office and be extremely productive until they leave. For businesses that have slowed, optimizing processes can be done during this time. Paying employees so they can be more productive later is a great investment. Scaling processes can allow a startup to grow in a huge way if employees are only working at home for a limited time.

Time Logging by Task

Time logging is important for a myriad of reasons whether it is billing clients or tracking what employees are doing during the day. A salesperson might spend too much time looking to sell older leads rather than pitch new leads. There should be a balance but a majority of the focus should be on the new leads coming in. Time tracking software is available so you can track time for clients and see what employees are doing. Screenshots are available if they are turned on by an admin which is something to consider for employees not performing well. The aspect that you have to remember is that an employee will return to their former glory. If they are struggling with being as productive when working from home you need to assist them.

Continue to Shout Out Top Performers in Emails

There might not be any reason to jump on a call with the employees that you manage. Shouting out those that are killing it in terms of production needs to be done. The recognition can serve as reinforcement and motivation for the employee as well as the rest of the team. Doing production competitions can be wise with a bonus associated but it is important to outline the rules explicitly. You do not want a company competition to turn into a point of contention when everyone gets back to the office.

Use Technology to Allow Collaboration to be Seamless

Using the cloud can allow everyone to collaborate like they were in the office. Leaving notes on a Google Doc or Google Sheet can act as physically telling someone. Using a Helm repository for developers that are working remotely is common even when working in the office. The security of this also reigns supreme when compared to storing the files on a hard drive that could be hacked. Project management tools are a great idea during this phase so everyone understands what they should be doing.

Morale Boosting Zoom Meetings

At many companies, there are people that have seen each other for 5 days a week for decades or years. There is personal rapport built so having some kind of Zoom meeting to simply ask about life can be a great thing to do on a Friday afternoon. Companies at times have a beer on a Friday which can be done although it will be optional. The company even reduces any liability due to people already being at home so they do not have to drive. The Coronavirus pandemic shutdown is most likely the most time that any employee has spent away from their coworkers in years.

Be Realistic as Some Employees are Now Teachers

Productivity for someone that has multiple children that need help with school during the day will not be equal to a single employee. Never before have we encountered something like this with the mass closures and technology to allow us to work from home. Workload should be realistic as overloading a person can lead to losing a valued employee.

All employees are going to differ with the amount of motivation that they need. There will those people that you rarely hear from that are just producing at incredible levels. Others might be having a much tougher time motivating themselves outside of the team atmosphere that has been created in the office.