Telecommuting or work from home arrangements have steadily risen over the last few years. According to data from GlobalWorkplaceAnalytics.com), which was updated last January 2016, the number of regular work-at-home employees has grown by 103% from 2005.
And there is a reason for that. It turns out, telecommuting actually saves both the company and the employees a ton of money. Who would have thought? But seriously, according to the same study, the potential bottom line or return on investment of the widespread adoption of telework in the country can yield employers a saving of $11,000 per person per year, while a telecommuting employee could save between $2000-$7000 per year. It also allows companies to widen their candidate search as they can now consider people who are not within commuting distance of their office. The environment will be a big winner as well as carbon emissions will be significantly reduced because less people will be commuting and bringing their cars to work.
Of course, there are still many challenges in implementing an effective telecommuting policy. There is the challenge of supervision. Without being in the same office, it would be difficult to gauge the working habits of a certain employee. All you have to go by is results. That in itself is not a bad thing, as employees would like to be judged more about what they contributed instead of how they came up with such contributions. However, it also makes it difficult for you and your managers to see if they are ready for a promotion since you are not able to conveniently monitor their people skills and other traits. Not to mention, the actual ability of the employee to overcome laziness and distractions and actually work.
Of course, the benefits still outweigh the cons, and the challenges above can actually be addressed. You just have to know that managing a telecommuting workforce is different from managing your usual employees.
To help you, here are some helpful tips on how to manage your work from home employees:
Take your operations to the cloud
This is the most important tip as it will make things much easier for you. Invest in cloud services that can help facilitate certain tasks or office functions because as a cloud-hosted tool, these can be accessed from anywhere as long as there is Internet access. This lets you and your employees operate on the same platform even if you are miles apart. Some examples of cloud technology are storage apps like Box or Dropbox, unified communications as a service with voice, fax, SMS, and video and audio conferencing tool like RingCentral, or business productivity apps like Office 365 and G-Suite.
Do not micromanage but still be a leader
Work-from-home employees are independent workers, they are almost contractors in the sense that they do not need much supervision and are pretty much results-oriented. But do remember that they are not contractors – they are still employees. So you still need to be establish your presence as a leader even if you are not in the same room. How? By doing the other things that managers and supervisors do. You provide positive and critical feedback, foster teamwork with other employees (more on that later), challenge them with new tasks to improve their skills, provide training, and help them in their career. Not just because they work from home does it automatically mean they no longer want to move up the hierarchy. A lot of them would still want a raise and a promotion, and it will fall upon you, their leader to advocate on their behalf.
Create group projects
Not all tasks can be done alone and it would be imperative that you foster a strong team dynamic even if your team is scattered across the country. You can start off with small projects that will compel them to interact with each other through online meetings, group chats, video chats, and more. This way, when an actual big project comes along that needs everyone to work together, the dynamics of the team is already established and they are ready to go.
Meet with your team
If possible, have regular meetings with your whole team. If a physical meeting can be arranged, that would be better. If not, a video conference will be preferable more than audio conferences. Without video, the temptation to just mute and leave is strong. In a video conference, people will have the need to look attentive and even dress up nice. Make sure the meeting is interactive so that everyone will feel that they are indeed part of a team.
These are just some simple tips on managing telecommuters. As you go along, you will eventually find what works and what doesn’t for your team.
Mark Dacanay is a Digital Marketing Professional who has been working with a B2B company offering cloud-based services for more than 5 years. He is obsessed with anything about the cloud – the technology, not the fluffy stuff in the sky. You can reach him through Twitter and LinkedIn.
Guest Blog by Mark Dacanay of RingCentral.
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