The recent ban on remote working at Yahoo! is counter-productive to being successful in today’s connected-enterprise. Certainly their situation, as reported by the media, is different than most; a large remote workforce who is not productive, some of whom allegedly collect pay while working on outside projects. Marissa Mayer undoubtedly inherited this situation and the blame falls squarely on the backs of managers who have rewarded poor performance, whether in the office or at home. However, with the walls between work and home collapsing, the ability to leverage talent on a global basis and the knowledge worker’s expectation to be able to work anywhere, anytime it behooves us to embrace remote workers. There is no denying the value of ‘water cooler’ discussions and face time with colleagues. Innovation trades on the serendipitous exchange of information. We have yet to find a substitute for bumping into a colleague in the hallway and discovering a new way of thinking about a project, or finding a unique way to look at a complex problem over a sandwich. At Actiance we put a premium on this type of engagement and often fly executives from around the globe to headquarters to create these opportunities. Conversely, productivity, which trades on process, is often best served by an environment that minimizes distractions. Who hasn’t welcomed flying at 30,000 feet just to be able to power through a backlog of emails, read documents or finalize a project summary uninterrupted? The bottom line is you need both: innovation and productivity. Whether you have workers who use a home office or distributed teams across global offices you need to find a balance between innovation and productivity. One of the ways we engage our distributed workforce, and hopefully find the balance, is with technology. Video is used at staff meetings, weekly summaries are captured and shared on Connections, and our team engages on social networks via our Socialite product. Innovation with productivity is achieved through engagement made possible by technology, and wise management. Here are some tips we’ve gained over the years to help you successfully engage with and manage your remote workforce. You’ll note they are not all that different than what a good manager does with non-remote workers in the office.
- Consistent: Hold regular conversations with your remote workers, either via chat, social networks or email.
- Engage: Don’t just talk about the projects you are working on. Find out what matters to the remote workers, discuss relevant industry news, what’s happening in HQ…make them feel like you are interested in them and they are part of the team.
- Expectations: Set and reinforce expectations via consistent engagement and dialogue.
- Policy: Make sure your remote work policy is well crafted and communicated across the work force. It needs to be fair for all.
- Reward: Let them, and others, know when they have been successful. Just because you can’t see them, doesn’t mean sharing their triumphs with others isn’t important to them.
- Support: Discover, define and help them with the challenges that they face in performing their tasks regardless if they are working remotely or not. Just because they are out of the sight, doesn’t mean they don’t face challenges.
- Technology: Use it wisely. Perhaps you have team discussions on a collaboration platform, but more personal 1:1 discussions with individual team members on a different channel, such as video. So he/she knows they can contribute openly on the team collaboration platform and have deeper discussions on another.
There are many different ways to embrace a remote workforce and make it successful. We’d like to hear yours. Feel free to leave a comment below.
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