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Managing Remote Workers

How should I manage team members who work remotely?

A snapshot

In your fast-moving business environment, you may find that your people are scattered around different sites. This can present quite a different challenge from managing people on site.

Managing people remotely involves the skill of generating a sense of team purpose and trust, when regular meetings with individuals are impractical or impossible.

Managing people remotely requires:

the ability to build trust

a good understanding of communication channels

sharing clarity of purpose and expectations.

If you face the challenge of managing people remotely and feel that you have lost the element of control, then this module will help you.

It is often said that trust is hard-won and easily lost, so, first of all, you will look at the element of trust and gain practical ways of building trust with the people you manage remotely. You will be asked to consider whom you trust at work and in your general life and more importantly, what forms the basis for this level of trust.

How you agree to communicate is also crucial. The method, regularity and detail that pass between you and your remote colleague/s can be very important. Different people will have different preferences and technologies for communicating. During this module, you will consider what others want from you, as well as what you need from them.

Finally, you will look at techniques that ensure all parties are clear about your expectations of them and why. This involves agreeing and writing down a team charter between two or more people as a result of conversations around individual needs. The charter clarifies expectations and forms a good basis for reviewing the remote relationship.

Tell me why

When you are able to build trust, communicate effectively and impart clarity about purpose and expectations, your remote workers will know:

  • how much trust you place in them
  • how, when and what to communicate
  • when to tackle problems themselves
  • when to ask for support
  • what to do to meet their objectives.

Getting the balance right is crucial and it is important that you are clear on what level of reporting you need. It is always best to discuss this with your remote workers and come to a joint decision on what levels of reporting are good for both you and them.

Regular reviews of your remote working relationships will help you maintain the balance for the benefit of both parties. Your remote workers will be more confident in what they are doing and clear about your expectations.

You will free up more time to deal with your own tasks and sleep easier at night knowing that they will:

  • send you timely performance information
  • advise you on any relevant issues
  • be focused on their performance targets
  • be motivated to achieve them
  • in short, be responsible, accountable, consulted and informed.

If you want to manage remote people more effectively, read on!

Tell me how

This section will help you understand how to build a trusting relationship, use the correct channels of communication and share a clarity and purpose with your remote workers.

Building trust

Mutual trust can be defined as a shared belief that you can depend on each other to achieve a common purpose. You can see how important this is immediately.

Remember back to when you were a teenager, starting to realise that there was much more going on in the world that you wanted to be a part of and how it felt if you weren’t allowed to join in with something some of your friends were doing. Think of the relationship between teenagers and their parents or guardians. Successful parental relationships are usually about giving freedom in increasing quantities, so that trust can be built between parents and children. As trust builds, so the freedom can be increased.

Managing people remotely looks quite similar, especially in a new remote working relationship. You will need to feel comfortable that your people are working well, but without coming across as too heavy-handed.

The main difference between managing people remotely and on site is that the former involves managing results rather than activity. This is where the big trust challenge comes in. If you can’t see them, how do you know they are working?

The simple answer to this is by managing the feedback of results, but how do you do it?

Here are some best-practice tips.

  • Have open discussions with your remote workers.
  • Agree what results you need and by when.
  • Agree what needs to be measured.
  • Split required results into short, medium and long-term, for example, weekly, monthly or quarterly.
  • Agree a reporting structure that is good for both you and them.
  • Be flexible (different people will have different needs).
  • Remember that not all results are in terms of profit or productivity.

Building trust through results takes time, but far less than checking every significant piece of work. You know it makes sense!

Channels of communication

The primary channels for communicating with remote workers are telephone and email, so it’s worth considering some of the good and bad points of each method. Let’s have a look at the telephone first.

Telephone communication

The advantages of using the telephone:

  • It’s quick and direct.
  • You can ask for specific information when you need it.
  • You can give specific information when the person you are talking to needs it.
  • It’s personal.

The disadvantages of using the telephone:

  • You may be putting someone on the spot.
  • You may be interrupting important work.
  • You may not come across the way you want to.

In telephone communication, there are two important factors to consider:

  • The way you sound (this communicates about 75% of the meaning).
  • What you say (this communicates the remaining 25% of the meaning).

Without paying attention to some simple communication guidelines, your telephone calls can have an adverse effect on the remote working relationship.

Here are some best-practice tips.

  • Know what impact you want to make.
  • Plan what you are going to say and what questions you are going to ask.
  • Get in a good state of mind before you make the call.
  • Put a lot of positive energy into your greeting.
  • Tell them what it is you want.
  • Ask if it is a good time for them to take the call.
  • Listen carefully to understand them.
  • Listen for about 80% of the call.
  • Talk for about 20% of the call.
  • Maintain positive energy throughout the call.
  • Refocus on what impact you want to make.
  • Agree actions and finish with high positive energy.

Remember, talking on the phone, keep it short and to the point.

Email communication

The main benefit of email is that you won’t interrupt the person you want to communicate with. It is the ideal way to send detailed information through to your remote workers. Email works well in conjunction with the telephone, by giving detailed information prior to or following a discussion.

There are however, some disadvantages you might want to consider, including:

  • email can become time-consuming when answering complicated questions and misunderstandings can arise in the interpretation
  • email can compromise the security of you and your company because sensitive information can be easily distributed accidentally or deliberately
  • email can be impersonal.

When communicating by email, there are some standard tips.

  • Use the person’s name as if you are talking to them.
  • Keep them conversational – write just like you talk.
  • Put passion in your email, don’t be afraid to express emotion!
  • Write to one person – avoid blanket emails where possible.
  • Keep your sentences and paragraphs short.
  • Use compelling subheadings to break up text.
  • Keep it simple and clear.
  • Let the person you are emailing know if and how they should respond.

When communicating with your remote workers, consider the following three things:

  • What you want to get from the communication?
  • What’s the best method of communicating?
  • What needs to go into the communication itself?

Clarity of purpose and expectation

It is always good practice to let your remote workers know exactly where they fit into the overall scheme of things and this is especially important in managing remotely.

A results chain is a useful way for you to illustrate this to individuals. It lets them see how their activity combines with the activities of others to impact on the overall performance of the business.

While establishing a charter sounds really formal, it can be a very useful tool in managing remote people individually as well as teams of remote people. It provides a vital sense of belonging and an informal basis for working collaboratively. It should be drawn up from open discussion with individuals and can cover issues of reporting, communication, feedback and managing conflict.

See some sample elements of a charter below.

  • We will communicate as agreed by telephone and email.We will accept responsibility and accountability for our actions.
  • We will consult and inform when necessary.
  • We will give honest and compassionate feedback.
  • We will contribute fully in conversations and discussions.
  • We will confront challenges to the working relationship.
  • We will manage conflict.
  • We will support each other in achieving our objectives.

It is easy to see how this can form the basis of a structured review of the remote working relationship, which in itself will support the growth of trust.

A summary

In managing people remotely, there are three important areas to consider.

  • Your ability to build trust by managing results rather than activities.
  • A good understanding of skills required in the use of telephone and email.
  • Sharing clarity of purpose by considering the results chain and expectations by formulating a charter.

Ideas to try

Use the suggestions in this section to apply the key learning from this module directly to your business.

Activity 1

Use the template in the link below to plot in up to ten people in your personal life according to how much you trust them (100 % trust is right at the centre).

Consider the people close to the centre. What do they do differently to the people further away to generate greater levels of trust?

What can you learn from them?

Thinking now about your remote workers, consider the levels of trust that you have with each individual.

Applying anything you have learned; write some action points to develop the relationship of trust with remote colleagues.

How much do you trust people? PDF

Activity 2

Use the template in the link below to record some measurements for people you speak to on the telephone.

Draw some conclusions about what makes some people more effective on the phone.

Ask for some feedback on your own telephone style using the same measures.

Write down any changes you may need to make.

Telephone manner PDF

Activity 3

Create a results chain for your remote team members.

Use the template in the link below to detail your:

  • actions
  • outputs
  • short-term results
  • medium-term results
  • long term-results.

If you already manage one or more remote colleagues, complete the exercise with each of them.

Results chain PDF

Activity 4

Consider what you would like to include in a charter with your remote workers (if you would like some hints, check out the examples in the Tell me how section of this module).

Discuss these with someone whose opinion you value and ask for their feedback.

Once you are happy with your charter, communicate it your team and use it to manage your remote team.

Next – Points to remember

Points to remember

In short, to manage your remote workers effectively, you need to do the following.

  • Build trust
  • Have open discussions.
  • Agree what results you will need and by when.
  • Agree what needs to be measured.
  • Split results into short, medium and long-term.
  • Agree a reporting structure.
  • Be flexible.
  • Remember that not all results have to be in terms of profit or productivity.

Understand the different communication channels

When communicating with your remote workers, consider the following three things:

  • what you want to achieve
  • the best method
  • the content of communication itself.

Share clarity of purpose and expectations

Give people clarity on the following points:

  • what they are expected to do
  • what this will produce
  • what the short, medium and long-term results will be.

Form a charter

  • Have open discussions on how you can work together.
  • Summarise the main points into an agreement.
  • Use the agreement to review the working relationship.