These are my key thoughts related to remote working, after implementing full scale remote working in Interactions starting with January 2019.
Any manager’s worst nightmare when it comes to remote working is accountability. How do you actually know if your people are working?
Managed improperly this fear will lead quickly to a very dangerous state-of-things: managers will end-up doing micro-management and police-work, instead of providing valuable guidance, meaningful task assignment and business development.
What is the solution? It is actually very simple and it’s build on 5 main pillars:
1. Focus on output instead of butt-on-chair time. At the end of the day you are interested in getting as much done and educating people to act independently and prove their value. As a manager you will never have time to daily guide remotely every single employee. So at the end of the day, the most valuable people will be those who understand quickly what they need to do, organize themselves and deliver results.
2. Set clear objectives and evaluate based on those objectives.
3. Foster a culture of trust but do not hesitate to discard people who repeatedly break this trust. We all know the story of the rotten apple.
4. Use automation and software tools as much as possible. Reduce internal emails to zero if possible.
5. Last but not least, be very open and honest. Switching to a business chat instead of email has the advantage of being able to keep much more discussions open, in public channels. That way people exchange information much better and no one feels that things get actually decided behind closed doors.
And one-last closing thought: try to provide people with weekly business status updates. This helps everyone to better understand how they stand. Especially today, when uncertainty is a top-topic for everyone, bringing a little clarity will always help.
PS: the featured picture is my actual home office, taken exactly at the moment of writing this post.
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