In this age of COVID-19, our everyday work environments are changing. More and more companies are now allowing employees to work from home. And while that may be the best way to allow many companies to conduct business, it’s not always an easy transition to make – particularly for the supervisors of those telecommuters. In fact, if you haven’t done so in the past, managing a remote team may seem like a daunting task. That’s why we’ve compiled this list of questions frequently asked by managers of remote workers – to make sure you’re ready for the transition to this new way of working.
Q: What is the first thing I should do to get my employees ready to work at home?
A: Make sure they have adequate infrastructure. That includes remote desktop technology, IP phones if needed, and whatever cloud-based tools you choose to provide your employees with shared work spaces and secure work environments.
Q: What can I do to make sure that people are psychologically equipped for working at home?
A: Let them know that they’re not alone. As a manager, check in with them on a regular basis. Utilize conferencing software to conduct team meetings. In other words, make working from home as similar as possible to the work days that your employees would experience in a regular office environment.
Q: How do I assess the performance of people working from home?
A: Set clear objectives. Make sure that every employee has a well-defined set of goals that includes deadlines for completion of each task, and be certain that those deliverables are completed and submitted on time. Your workers should not only be accountable to you, but also should remember that their peers and other team members count on them to carry their fair share of the workload. If a jigsaw puzzle is missing even a single piece, it’s incomplete. Let your employees know that they play an important role in the success of the team and the company overall.
Q: How can I make sure that my employees are actually working and not just wasting time at home?
A: Although some managers have chosen to utilize website blocking tools or even monitoring their employees via built-in cameras, that is NOT the most effective way to supervise a remote team. The truth is that micro-managing never works, whether your employees are working onsite or from a remote location. The key to successfully managing a remote team is by measuring their productivity levels. And that’s exactly why we developed MySammy. Our cloud-based software measures how productive your telecommuters are without spying on them or blocking websites. And it’s designed to be used with full knowledge of the employee. In fact, MySammy provides excellent motivation for remote workers to improve their own performance over time.
Many CEOs agree that the switch from working in an office to working at home will be the new normal in the future. Make sure you and your staff are ready to make that transition with MySammy. Sign up for your free trial today!
