| By Mike Kappel
Remote work is becoming a norm. One study found that 52% of employees work remotely at least once per week. With so many employees working at least part of their time at home, coffee shops, or other places, you need to keep up with your changing role as a business owner and manager.
In my experience, only about one in ten employees can pull off working remotely. For it to be effective, employees must be super disciplined and willing to connect. You must find new ways to communicate information and keep your workers on task.
Tips For Managing Remote Employees
If employees do need to work from home, use the following tips to manage your remote staff.
Start With Onboarding
When any employee starts at your business, you should take them through your onboarding process. When onboarding employees, you should hold an orientation, set job expectations, prepare the work environment, and introduce team members.
Onboarding is especially important for remote employees. Just because the employee is located somewhere else, you shouldn’t neglect the onboarding process.
Tell the employee everything they need to know about your company and their position. Explain the employee’s responsibilities and set job expectations. Make sure the employee has all the tools necessary to do their job. Introduce the employee to your team, even if it is virtually. The new employee and other staffers should know what everyone does and how to contact each other.
Use Communication Tools
Communication with remote employees can be difficult. Because they aren’t around for face-to-face communication, they might miss out on important information. You and other employees need to know what your remote employees are working on. And if there are problems, you must be able to reach your remote employees quickly.
You need to have communication tools that all your employees can use. These can include email, phones, and video conferencing and instant messaging software.
Track Employee Time
When a worker doesn’t work where you do, it can be difficult to tell if they are working. Some remote employees might take advantage of their work situation. Because they don’t have someone looking over their shoulder, they might do whatever they want and commit time theft. You need a way to track how much time your employees are working.
You can better monitor how much time employees are working by using time and attendance software. Employees will either clock in and clock out each day, or log the amount of time they worked. You know how much employees should be working, so you can compare the employee’s schedule to the time card.
Not only can time and attendance software help you spot time theft, but it can also help you make sure employees aren’t working too much. Remote employees might have a difficult time separating their work and home time. As a result, they don’t stop working. If you see that a remote employee is consistently working far more than they should, you can talk to them about their work habits.
Monitor Projects
It can be tricky to track projects and what is being worked on when a worker is remote. To make projects easier to follow, check out project management software.
With project management software, everyone can see what tasks need to be done. You can see what projects are in progress and who is working on what.
You can also monitor how long employees take to complete their projects. If an employee is taking too long, make sure the employee understands your expectations and is actually working when they should be.