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How to Manage Remote Employees

Best practices for creating collaboration and cohesion with virtual teams

Continuing Education Credits: CEU: 0.6 CPE: 6 HRCI: 5.5 PDC: 6 

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Overview

Practical tools, great ideas and savvy strategies for successfully managing your remote teams
  • Seven secrets for assembling high performing remote work teams
  • Best practices for tracking off-site employees performance and progress
  • Four realities managers must understand about remote team meetings
  • How to coach, counsel and mentor your remote workers from afar
  • The top 10 ways managers “build or kill” off-site employee trust
  • How to manage the flow of information for clear communication
  • How to handle off-site power struggles, politics and employee conflicts
  • And more

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Not being able to see employees face-to-face can really throw a wrench into your management style. Defusing conflicts, dealing with crises, delivering feedback (both positive and negative), monitoring work flow, offering support — your responsibilities as a manager get that much tougher when you can’t do it in person. Even something so simple as organizing an impromptu team meeting, or calling for a group brainstorming session can become that much more complicated when team members work off-site.

As a Distance Manager, how do you keep on top of …
  • Squabbles, altercations and arguments between employees you can’t even see face-to-face?
  • Discipline issues, performance problems and lack of communication between your employees and yourself?
  • The back-and-forth flow of information you need to make educated decisions regarding your people and your business?
  • Legal issues and employment laws that are pertinent to remote employees?
  • The challenges of creating a positive, professional virtual work environment?
  • Your remote employees’ day-to-day performance and productivity?

Agenda

Assembling Your Remote Team

  • Learn essential competencies every off-site manager must know
  • Discover techniques to assess and hire motivated self-starters
  • Develop skills to properly set up internal controls and reporting systems for monitoring individual and team performance
  • Determine success by evaluating performance guidelines against key metrics
  • Establish technological requirements, work flow and a process to trouble-shoot any challenges
  • Set and maintain consistent quality standards by providing timely feedback

Conducting Virtual Meetings

  • Establish an efficient and consistent recurringmeeting time and format
  • Time saving strategies for developing agendas covering items of priority and delegation
  • Discover key tips to add structure and accountability for off-site employees
  • Ensure technology is up-to-date and not another hurdle along the way to meeting deadlines
  • Focus on continuous improvement—eliminate work slowdowns, bottlenecks and other issues that impede progress
  • Discourage unproductive status reports—focus on motivation, delivery and engagement

Building Trust Off-Site

  • Learn effective strategies to build rapport and unity with multiple-location teams
  • Top tips to avoid developing an “Us vs. Them” mentality
  • Remember off-site doesn’t mean out-of-mind; conduct frequent “surprise” visits and provide honest feedback
  • Stay connected and encourage team members to know when to call or schedule an in-person visit, versus when to email or videoconference
  • Be a responsive and strong leader by providing clear direction and timely feedback to keep your employees and projects on track
  • Discover strategies for strengthening remote employee morale and team trust

Enhancing Remote Communication Strategies

  • Embrace differences that allow your remote teams to thrive
  • Acknowledge different work styles and adapt for better collaboration
  • Know your team members’ cultural backgrounds
  • Extend the best of your company’s working culture to your remote employees—include them in in-office activities like costume contests, or virtual lunch and learns—extend an invitation to the yearly office party for important in-person catchups
  • Stay informed of newsworthy events in your off-site employees’ geographic areas
  • Identify and work to champion broader corporate goals and objectives, while explaining how they are tied to the projects your remote employees are undertaking

Dealing with Difficult Personalities from a Distance

  • Find ways to manage off-site employees’ results, not their day-to-day activities
  • Be proactive, not reactive—predict, diagnose and solve problems before they manifest—even when you aren’t there to take action in person
  • Identify attendance problems and attitude issues swiftly and fairly
  • Educate yourself on sensitive subjects like delivering performance reviews and even firing from a distance
  • Learn how to “nix or fix” a seriously dysfunctional off-site team
  • Develop preventative maintenance and early warning systems to identify and resolve performance, attendance and morale issues across multiple-location teams

Utilizing Technology to Enhance Off-Site Performance

  • Explore technological solutions that make staying connected seamless and integrated for your remote teams
  • Learn the best ways to use technology to improve your off-site team’s performance
  • Streamline record retention, while making shared files assessable and protected
  • Use project management tools to manage multiple tasks involving multiple participants from different locations
  • Gain tips for successful one-on-one coaching, counseling and mentoring while using platforms like Skype, WebEx, GoToMeeting and more
  • Learn “High Touch” technology—top ways supervisors are using technology to improve human relations