Depending on the nature of your work, it is likely that you will be spending a portion of your time working remotely from your office.  Such instances could be:

*  When you are traveling, and need to coordinate work with your colleagues in the office;

*  When you work in a subsidiary, an overseas business unit or a division and you need to liaise with head office;

*  When you are working in a SOHO (Single-Office, Home Office) arrangement whereby you simply have to get the support from somewhere/ someone etc.

And this list is not exhaustive by any means. To some, working remotely can be a lonely and harrowing experience of being “exiled” some place.  To others, working remotely means enjoying that sense of freedom and personal space that is not available at the office.

To managers, however, the challenges are usually:

• “How do I make sure the work done by my remote teams and employees are done on time and correctly?”
• “How do I make sure that my remote teams and employees are motivated, engaged and productive?”
• “How can I give the right kind of support to my remote team members?”

The good news for managers is that, according to Gallup, some level of remote work actually boosts employee engagement.  The findings are:

• Among those who never work remotely, 28% are engaged — meaning they are emotionally involved in, enthusiastic about, and committed to their work — while 20% are actively disengaged, meaning they are unhappy at work and tend to disrupt their coworkers’ productivity. The remaining on-site workers fall into a middle category — not engaged.
• Among employees who spend up to 20% of their time remotely, 35% are engaged — but engagement levels drop as employees spend more time off-site.

Hence, if managed appropriately, working remotely could actually yield positive results.

The Right Kind of Remote Employees

Simply put, some of us are more suited than others to work remotely.  This is especially for remote employees who have to work out of their home office 100% of the time.

In many cases, some managers would require these 100% remote employees to have a strong sense of discipline, since there is no one to watch over them, and they need to be self-disciplined enough to get the work done.

However, while discipline is indeed a key criteria for an effective remote employee or team member, here are some other factors that could be just as important, if not more important, than discipline:

• Able to connect, coordinate and communicate with others in the organisation remotely
• Able to take initiative and be proactive
• Able to set clear goals and priorities
• Able to solve problems independently

To succeed, remote employees MUST be able to work with other colleagues remotely, as their work is very likely to interact with the work of others.  Devoid of a structured environment, the remote employee would have to take initiative to reach out to others, while also know what goals and priorities she has to achieve.  Also, working alone means she may need to solve problems independently, should there be delays in getting the right support she needs.

In contrast, here are some of the “no-no”s when it comes to selecting the right person to work remotely:

• Overly quiet and introverted
• Does not keep others updated about what he or she is doing
• Passive-aggressive

As mentioned earlier, the irony of working remotely is that one will actually be working with others, albeit with much lesser face-to-face interaction.  If the remote employee does not take initiative to reach out to others, other colleagues may not be able to provide the right kind of support, and eventually results get negatively affected.

Monitoring without Micro-Managing

As most of the work undertaken by remote employees and teams do not have established procedures (what we define as responsibilities as opposed to tasks), managers would have to be more skilful in monitoring them.

Rather than monitoring too much on how the work is being done, which might lead to micro-managing, managers could emphasize more of what goals need to be achieved by the remote employee or team.

When delegating responsibilities to a remote employee, it’s critical that the person is held accountable for the results. To keep track of such goals or results, we use a CLEAR goals model as a guide:

• Challenging/ Challenges
• Limited by Time
• End Objective
• Agreed Upon/ Animated Steps
• Required

As mentioned, the key to monitor a remote employee’s work is to set such CLEAR goals with the employee, and then provide reviews if the employee is on track to achieve these goals.

Being an Effective Remote Employee Leader

As the saying goes, people join a company but leave because of their bosses.  In a way, the boss or leader of a remote employee will also have profound effects on the remote employee, as well as the expected results.

As such, the qualities of effective leaders of remote teams and employees can be summed up as follows:

• Tireless
• Goal-oriented
• Encouraging
• Approachable
• Constructive
• Authentic

Surprisingly, managing remote employees can be a more tiring than managing on-site ones, especially when you have multiple remote teams to manage.  As teams operate remotely, it will be essential to keep these remote teams stay focused on team goals.  At the same time, leaders of remote teams and employees would have to give encouragement and support when things get tough, be approachable and responsive (24 x 7, at times) when remote team members needed help and then respond as constructively as one possibly can.

On top of that, leaders of remote teams and employees need to be enough, to build better rapport and trust without having a lot of face-to-face interaction.  Hence, while selecting the right person to work remotely is important, being the right kind of leader to lead remote teams and employees is just as important AND challenging too.

By c.j. Ng