Best Practices for Managing Remote Workers

By TORI FICA

You know that cousin you haven’t spoken to in years? It’s not because you don’t like her — you just moved away from each other and lost touch. A month without contact turns into six months, then a year, and soon you realize you have no clue what she’s been up to. Fortunately, no matter how long between phone calls or family reunions, your cousin will always be your cousin.

The same can’t be said for remote workers. When best practices break down at your organization, instead of taking years to drift apart, it may only take a few days for remote employees to feel neglected and disengaged.

This becomes more important when you consider that remote workers are becoming a more substantial piece of the workforce year over year. According to Gallup in 2016, 43% of working Americans said they spent at least some time working remotely — a four-point increase since 2012. 

Employers are responding to this growing demand for remote work options as well, with 40% more offering flexible or remote work options today than they did five years ago.

Whether your organization has five or 500 remote workers, it’s important to learn how to manage them effectively. As you learn remote-worker best practices, you can grow your reputation as a great place to work, attract top candidates from around the world, and retain the exceptional people you already have on your remote team.

How to Manage Remote Workers
Managing remote employees boils down to two elements: connection and collaboration.

If you can help your offsite workers feel connected to the rest of the team and find opportunities to collaborate on important projects, then you’re doing it right. And if you think some of your remote team members may be struggling, you know what to check on first.

Personal connection – Positive relationships at work are a key ingredient for employee engagement. In fact, Gallup has found that having close friendships at work can boost engagement. For example, 63% of women who strongly agree they have a best friend at work report feeling engaged, versus only 29% of women who said otherwise.

For remote workers, those connections and friendships can be even more crucial and take much more conscious effort. Without managers, team members, and even the organization’s leaders putting in the time and effort to foster relationships with remote employees, it’s all too easy for those workers to feel isolated and left out.

A study published in Harvard Business Review showed that remote workers are more likely than onsite employees to worry that coworkers say bad things behind their backs, make changes to projects without telling them in advance, lobby against them, and don’t fight for their priorities.

Building a culture that fosters open, positive friendships among coworkers can help dismantle some of these concerns that plague many remote employees.

Team collaboration – Besides a personal connection, remote employees also need to feel a professional connection — a.k.a., collaboration — to their organization.

Some collaboration happens in scheduled meetings or formal brainstorming sessions, but most of it comes in the organic, casual conversations that spring up on their own. Indeed, such informal communication is linked to increased productivity within a group.

If teams don’t make an effort to collaborate and communicate with their offsite coworkers, they may move decisions and projects forward without consulting everyone who should be involved.

As Brian de Haff, CEO of Aha, explained, “An issue arises and action needs to be taken immediately. Company leaders gather the in-office team together and share the plan. Everyone marches ahead, getting busy. But no one tells the remote folks — either because the team simply forgot or did not want to take the time to reach out.”

Not only does this make those remote employees feel less informed and appreciated, but your organization could also be missing out on valuable input and expertise.

It’s in these moments of quick decisions and project breakthroughs that it is most important to involve remote team members. Doing so may seem challenging, but it’s doable (and worthwhile) with the right strategies and tools.

Strategies and Tools for Managing Remote Workers
Now that we have the core elements in place, let’s get down to the nitty-gritty. What are the best practices for remote workers? What tools, technology, and strategies will set your organization on the path to successfully managing a remote team?

We asked a few of our own Bambooligans who work from home to share what helps them stay close to the rest of the organization. Here are some of the insights they shared.

Use video and phone calls – “I have asked my team to have their camera on during every team meeting and every one-on-one meeting. Something about being able to see each other while you talk makes it almost identical to being in the same room.” – Rob, Creative

“Use calls or video chat rather than emails and messages when possible. It’s so much easier to quickly communicate something over the phone or video conferencing. Without it, you lose a lot of the context and the tone of what someone is saying in real time.” – Anna, Partner Marketing

Be responsive and available – “The thing that makes the distance between coworkers feel like distance is the lag in communication. If I message somebody who lives hours away and they don’t respond for several hours, I’m going to wish we worked in the same room so we didn’t have to deal with that. But if each time I message them, they respond immediately, then it’s just the same as if we were both in the office together.” – Kellan, Customer Experience

Provide face-to-face meeting opportunities – “My manager is a remote employee who happens to live close by, so we get together for lunch or different activities. We also get together once a month for lunch with other BambooHR remote employees who live in the region.” – Greg, Marketing

“The biannual all-hands meetings are huge to stay connected. I build and strengthen a lot of relationships while I’m there, and it’s easier to maintain those remotely afterward.” – Kelsie, Creative

Make meetings accessible – “Trying to involve remote employees at meetings is also big. Making sure the mics work well, the camera angles are good, and that responses are being requested from remote employees go a long way.” – Greg, Marketing

Hold regular check-ins – “For me, standup meetings each morning are a great way to check in. My manager tries to sync up with me about ongoing [issues] that I might not be aware of since I’m not physically in the office.” – Jason, Product Development

Make personal connections – “I’ve found humor is a good way for people to connect. Ridiculous GIFs, jokes, etc., help to liven things up, and as people join in with each other, they naturally feel more connected.” – Kellan, Customer Experience

Keep remote team members involved – “Sometimes I have to inject myself into the loop when I think I might be getting left out due to not being physically there. My manager and team members also make an effort to pull me into conversations that I should be a part of, which helps a lot.” – Jason, Product Development

Strategies and Tools Checklist
Trying to keep track of all the ways you can help your remote teams? We’ve put together a checklist to make things easy:

Tools
• Chat and collaboration tool (Google Hangouts, Slack, etc.)
• Video calling
• Screen sharing
• Project-management system (Asana, Wrike, etc.)
• Automated onboarding software
• HR software with employee self-service
• Recognition and reward system

Strategies
• Train remote workers on how to work from home more effectively (we provide an e-learning course, an online training document, and a video for our remote employees).
• Use phone calls and video calls (camera on) whenever possible.
• Train employees how to give recognition to everyone (in and out of the office).
• Host all-hands, in-person company events periodically.
• Hold Q&A sessions with executive leadership just for remote workers.
• Send physical cards, letters, or swag packages in the mail.
• Check in frequently and regularly (daily stand-ups, weekly one-on-ones, etc.).
• Allow remote workers to own or lead collaborative projects.
• Provide channels for remote workers to give feedback to the organization (we set up a dedicated email address to receive remote-employee feedback).

Your remote workers have the potential for incredible productivity, creativity, innovation, and performance. But if your organization doesn’t provide what they need to thrive, they will likely take their skills and expertise somewhere else.

With remote work only becoming more common, your organization can’t afford to wait until tomorrow to learn and develop remote-worker best practices. It needs to start today.

The good news is that not many of these changes require sweeping, expensive changes. By and large, creating a great place for remote employees to work comes down to a shift in perspective and a willingness to put in the extra effort.

Tori Fica is a copywriter for BambooHR, the leading HR software for small and medium businesses. For more content like this, visit www.bamboohr.com/blog.