It’s best to work from home. You don’t need to dress up, you don’t have to bear the noise pollution in your office, you don’t have to deal with office politics and so on. But if you work for a long-term from home, you’ll start feeling left out from your company and will think that your presence is no longer wanted. This will take your mind off from work and you’ll start looking for a new opportunity.
In this case, the companies are responsible for managing their remote employees and making them feel a part of the company.
So, if you have remote employees in your team, here’s how to manage them efficiently.
1. Start Small Talk
When we talk to the remote employees, we are only focused on the work details and don’t bother to talk anything extra. It makes the employee thinks that you care about the work only and not them. It slowly moves them away from the work and makes them feel less about themselves.
So, when you’re chatting with your remote employee, give him updates about the latest office happenings and try to build rapport with the team members by asking the work problems if he’s facing any.
2. Use a Task Management Tool
When you want to manage your remote workers, task management tools are the best option to share the work details. On the tool, you can see which member is working on the task, what are the current work roles and the number of online employees at the moment. By using the tool, it will be easy to track your employee performance and also let them know about the work progress.
Also, if you want to share the files with your remote and office employees, the task management tool will also be a great option.
3. Use Video Calls
Instead of doing the audio calls, choose video calls and interact with your remote employees with emotions. Video conversation has many benefits such as by talking to your remote employee, you can judge their mood, note their expressions and care about them.
In addition, if you’re considering them to lead a project, you can test their communication skills and see if they are the right fit for the position. A productive conversation with your remote employees can level up their motivation and bring their focus to work. If possible, try to keep the conversation tone light so the employee sitting on the other side of the screen can also enjoy the conversation.
4. Prepare yourself to ask Open-Ended Questions
While talking to your remote employees it’s not right to shut the calls right after the work-conversation ends. Try to ask them open-ended questions. For example, if they are the project managers, inquire about the project management methodologies they used in the project and how do they implement it. Y/ou can also ask about the future of the project whether it will be profitable for the company or not.
By involving in deep conversations, you can better know your employee, his opinions about the project and the feedback. It’s not necessary that you keep the conversation limited to work only, you can move out of this zone to develop a connection with your employee.
5. Call them in Office once a Month
Creating a deep connection with your remote employees is important and calling them to the office might work a lot in this case. When you call them to attend meetings, they show more interest in your office, get a chance to meet with other colleagues and interact with everyone.
Organize creative activities or brainstorming and call your remote employees so they can show better involvement.
In a Nutshell
Your remote employees will feel left out if you don’t make them feel that the part of your company. The tips above will be effective in helping your remote employees and will drop the feeling of being singled out. Let’s make them the work easy for them so they can also give 100% focus to the work.