Telecommute Jobs: Tips For Managing Telecommuters
A lot more workers than ever before are working from home or other remote sites. This trend has historically been influenced by improved technology that allowed workers to do many of their office functions from home. Recently the move has accelerated, driven by a need to decrease traditional commuting due to increasing gas prices and concerns for the environment.
Running a team of remote employees can be a problem. This isn’t a traditional team and traditional management concepts will often fail. Managers need to adopt new methods to keep the task on track.
Function as a Team
Remote workers can easily lose sight of team goals. If they never see any more of the project than their very own contributions, they will not synchronize well with the initiatives of others. Look for opportunities for remote workers to work with one another. Rather than assigning many individual projects, develop team-oriented jobs that need work from several people.
A web-based workspace enables each worker to see the big picture and how all of the pieces fit together. They are able to see themselves as a piece of the overall strategy rather than just an individual meeting deadlines.
Synchronize Agendas
A lot of your employees want to use telecommuting as a way to work from their personal hours. This could be a good move as many people are more effective under different conditions. One employee may be better performing a few hours every day seven days a week while another worker prefers putting in four 10-hour days as well as having a long weekend.
While this may have a good effect on individual effort it may deteriorate the effectiveness of the team. Set forth occasions each week, or even every day, during which all employees is going to be expected to be available. This allows even workers on disparate schedules to collaborate.
This is another area that the online workspace can help people coordinate. By simply looking at each other’s calendars they are able to coordinate their efforts and not be worried about interrupting their colleagues during personal time. Weekly meetings are another option to keep everybody together. Encourage personnel to show up personally but require a minimum of that people teleconference in.
Use Technology to Organize
Electronic communication has become very easy that there is little distinction between communicating with somebody in the office next door and somebody on the other side of the world. Instead of using disparate communication strategies like telephone and email, coordinate team efforts with an online workspace. Project collaboration is simpler when everyone can not just see the schedule but can see discussions concerning the project whenever they need to.
Communicating through an online project management tool such as an extranet has the benefit that people can take a look at just the information they require instead of wading through emails about each and every detail of the project.
Finally, an online workspace makes it simple to work with others on tasks through online file sharing. By sharing files in one space, you reduce the danger of multiple versions of a document circulating as well as creating confusion.
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