Managers must adapt and shift to get the most productivity out of their team, keep morale up, and stay connected with their remote workforce. In this article, we will look into you can be a better manager of your team.

1. Set the right expectations.

Most underestimate the value of this action. It can be very valuable to you as a manager and to your team of remote workers as well. By setting the right expectations in the beginning you will reduce the overall stress of your employees, and also prevent future stress and frustration for yourself.

The fact is people suck at understanding what you want and expect from you, especially if you do not tell them what you expect. You need to set the guidelines.

Here are a couple examples of setting the right expectations can be:

• Set the actual work hours – Just like an office, you need to be clear on when they should be online and working. If you don’t, you may find people straying on and off throughout the day, which may lead to productivity problems, and even make the remote lifestyle harder on the employee. In some way, this protects the employee from hurting themselves.
• Set expectations on communications – this is huge. If you expect them to check in every two hours, then ensure they know this. Do you expect them to have their chat application opened at all times during their regular work hours, make sure they know this?

2. Have regular team social sessions

Isolation sometimes can be hard for people. Sure they may interact with their loved ones at home, but they may not be interacting with the team as much as they should and would when in the office.

To allow for the team to grow closer, and to encourage higher morale, have regular team social sessions. This can be done over Zoom or other video conferencing tools.

Slot an hour or so a week and have everyone join to discuss non-work related things, or perhaps play games such as trivia as a group. These tend to boost worker happiness and also allows the team to bond a little.

3. Have an online information hub.

One of the things that are pretty frustrating for remote workers is when they have a question on the process, are looking for specific forms, or need other information to complete their task.

Having them always reach out to you for standardized stuff that can be accessed somewhere on the web isn’t very productive for them or you.

Having a specialized secure only hub to store important workflow processes, passwords, documents, and links to important things that the job requires will be a huge asset to the team.

This will allow them to easily find things they need without having to waste time trying to request data from others or bug the manager.

4. Check-in often with your team.

It is vital that the manager checks in often with their employees. This may be as simple things like:

• How are they feeling?
• Do you need anything?
• Is there anything I can do to help you?
• I am here for you if and when you need anything.

This goes a long way. It also opens that door in the employee’s mind to trust you, and sooner or later, they may take you up on your offer.

Your job here is to make sure they are happy, healthy, and embracing the new lifestyle of being a remote worker.

5. Ensure they know they are doing a good job.

Aside from pay and working conditions, recognition is huge in any work environment, even with remote workers. Let them know when they do a good job. Let them know you appreciate their work. When they have big wins, celebrate it, not only with them but with the team.

You will be surprised at the productivity lift of remote workers when they know their work is being appreciated.

6. Prevent them from overworking.

This is weirdly the thing that remote workers do really struggle with. They lose control of their time allocation toward work and home life. If you speak to a lot of remote workers, they will say at times this is the hardest thing to deal with, aside from the lack of social interaction.

To help prevent this, make sure you are paying attention to your team’s activity especially after hours. If the team is on a tool that allows you to see they are active online, make sure before you log off, you check your teams status.

If you find some of them still on after their work hours, reach out to them and ask them to log off and get some rest. Sometimes you may have to give them a push to get them to put the work computer down. Remember, you do not want your team members to get burned out.

This is a common occurrence with remote working. You may need to set those boundaries. A neat thing some companies have been doing is occasionally letting their teams out early on Fridays. This can be an added morale booster at times and is effective. Your employees will love this.

7. Make sure they have the right tools.

We all know that we need the right tools to get the job done. The remote working environment is no different. The tools can be both physical and digital.

These tools can be both physical and digital. You may need to equip them with laptops, phones, chat software, project management software, video cam, if not on the laptop, etc.

Some companies have taken this a step further and offered discounts or expensed purchases of office equipment such as desks, office chairs, and other equipment.

8. Encourage employees to take breaks.

We all know now that sitting is not good for you. Especially when you do it for long lengths of time. Just as we talked about reaching out to your employees and asking if they need anything, or about pushing them to log off for the day, you need to push your employees to take breaks.

You need to encourage your staff to take stretch breaks, to take lunches, and to simply step away from work for a minute.

This helps them in many different ways, both physical and mental. For employees, these break up the day keeps them fresh and helps promote good health.

Some managers will have a timer set. When it goes off they will reach out to the team, have everyone stop what they’re doing, and tell them to get out of their seat to stretch. This is a wonderful idea. Stretching together is always a great idea, plus having someone push you to do it, is always a plus.

You should also make sure your employees are taking their lunches. Also, it’s never a bad idea to encourage a walk during that break. This is very impactful if the job requires long hours of sitting, which most remote working jobs do.

Some companies will also pay for lunch every once in a while to not only reward them for their hard work but also help to push them to take their break.

9. Include employees in big decisions.

Nothing makes a person feel a part of a team is when they are including in important decisions are at least are asking their feelings or thoughts about upcoming decisions with the company.

Including your remote workers more in these discussions makes them feel that they play a huge role in the success of the company, which can increase the person’s desire to do well with the company, and improve productivity.

10. Plan yearly trips and meetings

They might not see your face during the day to day, but having a yearly team meeting where the team gets together to meet in person every year is a good thing.

Obviously, some of this time can be work-related, but you should plan on some a majority of the time to do something fun with the team to create better team chemistry.

The team-building opportunity alone is worth the cost of the trip. It allows team members to get to know each other better as well as the managers.

You will probably be surprised at what ideas come out of the trip to better the company, its services, and its products.

You must think differently as a manager of remote workers.

The tips above should give you at the very least a starting point as you plan your new transition into managing remote workers. Although a lot of the same managing principles apply, there is some uniqueness to it. You need to adapt your style just a little bit.

If you achieve this, you may find that managing remote workers, may not be all that bad, and you will even benefit from the productivity that your teams will accomplish.

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