8 Tips for Managing Remote Employees in 2024

As mentioned earlier, your expectations should align with your employees’, and that includes being clear about the workplace setup. By letting your employees know what you expect from them, they will know what tasks to perform and when and how to perform them, even with minimal supervision.

Articulate what you want each member of your team to achieve in a day, for instance, and remind them as the deadline approaches. Let them know when they are expected to be online and if they must track their time.

An essential part of setting a successful remote management style is setting effective communication with your remote team via communication tools like Slack and Microsoft Teams. Maximize one-on-one feedback virtual meetings, for example, to pinpoint their strengths and points of improvement. Make extra efforts to listen to their concerns. Host team meetings for updates and brainstorming sessions. If you have extra time, you can also organize regular check-ins to see if they need help with anything.

Besides, frequent calls and messages make remote work less isolating and stressful, which will increase your employees’ engagement.

Stay in touch with your remote team, but be careful! While some remote employees may love check-ins, don’t overdo it to the point of micromanagement.

A huge part of transitioning to remote work is a process called dematerialization, or transferring in-office solutions, communication channels, and data online. There’s only one technology that can accommodate this shift: the cloud.

Cloud software, including the data that it stores, can be accessed anywhere and at any time. For example, project management tools are available and allow employers and employees to track their tasks for the day. Customer relationship management software is also a good example of the cloud’s application.

To efficiently manage your employees remotely, you will also need an all-in-one HR software (also hosted on the cloud) to streamline many of your HR processes. Folks HR is an online HRIS software that organizes your employee records, employee performance evaluations, and absence management into one convenient platform. We even offer “self-service” for employees, allowing them to log in their hours and make requests autonomously.

In addition to remote communication software tools, you need collaboration solutions such as Google Drive and ClickUp to share documents and complete team projects. Choose remote work tools that match the needs and realities of your business. They will improve work organization and your visibility of the progress of projects and tasks to be completed.

Although your employees are staying within the comfort of their homes, not all of them have access to the standard workstations they had in the office. In fact, according to a 2020 survey conducted by ServiceNow, one in three Canadian employees reported feeling less productive with an ‘improper’ work setup.

If you’re going to be providing them with equipment, you have to make sure that they encourage off-site productivity. For example, an ergonomic chair can improve their posture and provide comfort. It’s much easier to focus on work if your back isn’t in pain.

Meanwhile, a 2016 study from Texas A&M University found that employees who stood between work hours were more productive. To encourage this behaviour, another thing you can hand out is a standing desk converter — a type of office equipment that allows them to shift their position from sitting to standing and vice versa at any time.

Encourage them to switch positions every hour or so, as sitting at a desk for too long only leads to restlessness.

With this WFH setup, however, employees have no way of physically unplugging from work during breaks or even after the day is done. Additionally, the pandemic has made it difficult for people to meet up outside safely. As a result, they might be dealing with isolation, anxiety, and even loneliness. Company values are no longer shared, and remote employees’ morale and productivity suffer from this lack of human interaction.

As employers, the responsibility to remedy this falls on you — for both the company and your employees’ sake.

To help with that, organize simple and effective team-building activities that will benefit newbies and tenured alike. You can go for virtual team lunches, game nights, happy hours, online concerts, remote pizza parties, and group film viewing. Your creativity is the only limit! Be sure to avoid shop talk and just enjoy the moment.

While team-building activities are essential, communication needs to take place on a daily basis to prevent feelings of isolation and improve the wellbeing of your remote workers. Think about creating channels dedicated to informal communication between your employees and organize weekly meetings to exchange between team members. Encourage your employees to express recognition for their colleague’s contributions and achievements to create a positive work environment for everyone.

If you implement remote work in your company, it is essential to train your employees in data security issues, particularly regarding to their access and passwords, and to choose secure work tools. You should use electronic signatures for optimized document management, but also offer training on digital security to your employees so that they adopt better practices in this area. Building a clear remote working policy will also ensure that everyone is on the same page.

Remote working has its perks, but it also poses some challenges inherent to a remote setting, such as miscommunication. However, by incorporating these useful practices into your team’s remote work environment, you will surely see improvement in employee engagement and productivity levels.