3 Tips For Managing Remote Employees

While many companies have now started to have their employees work remotely full-time after the success they found during the pandemic, for many managers, knowing how to best manage a report team can still be a bit of a challenge. When people are coming into work and you can see them face-to-face on a regular basis, it’s often easier to see what’s going on with them. But when this isn’t the case, managers might wonder how to best go about being a successful manager.

To help you with this, here are three tips for managing remote employees. 

Hire The Right People

To have a remote working situation that works for all parties, you first have to make sure that you’ve hired the right people for the job. 

While you’re going to want to take the hiring process seriously in all cases, if you’re hiring someone for a remote position, you have to have some inherent trust with this person. But because many hiring processes can be very quick, it can be hard to build that trust. 

Knowing this, you’ll want to make sure that you’re doing your due diligence as a manager to hire people that you’ve thoroughly vetted and know can do the job that you’re hiring for. While this might mean lengthening out the hiring process, spending more time getting this decision right can save you a lot down the road. 

Use The Right Tools

Luckily, there are all kinds of tools that managers can use to help them work with their remote staff members. 

Tools like project management systems can help you see what everyone is working on and where they are in the process of finishing their work. You can also use shared calendars to see how everyone is spending their time and schedule times to collaborate. You can even use tools that monitor your entire network to see how things are going and ensure that everyone is staying on track. Find the tools that work for your organization and make sure that everyone on your team is using them to keep everyone else in the loop. 

Check In Regularly

Even with being able to check in on how projects are going by keeping an eye on project management software and other monitoring systems, you can’t really know how your staff is doing unless you reach out to them personally and check in on a regular basis. 

As a manager, you should try to touch base with your staff daily or weekly. Doing things like sending chats and emails daily can help your staff know that you’re there for them when needed. And if you schedule one-on-one every week or so, you can dive a little deeper into how your staff is doing and what’s going on with them so you can ensure everything runs smoothly. 

If you have remote employees that you manage, consider using the tips mentioned above to help you learn how to better work with your team.