Contents
- How to provide insurance if you are not completely confident in your employees
- Why the lack of response to the work of remote employees is detrimental to business
- How to allow employees to work remotely
In 2008, due to the crisis, I cut the costs of the advertising agency, which I then managed. 80% of employees work remotely, and I left only three people in the office.
I had to change my management style and overcome the fear that the employees at home would be idle. Looking ahead, I will say that neither I nor my subordinates returned to the office, and now I am remotely managing several projects.
I’ll tell you about how I gradually adjusted to work with remote employees.
How to get the CEO to work with remote employees
Step 1. Working with safety net
At first, I always prepared backup options. I did not leave the fear that I can let the client down. If I gave a task to an external executor, I always secured myself: I told staff members about the task and deadlines, asking them to be ready to quickly complete it in case of force majeure.
So, I collaborated with an excellent designer from Georgia, but a couple of times his Internet turned off at the most important moment, and then I duplicated the order to another employee. Now I don’t use insurance, because I trust employees. Although, I will not hide, sometimes it is difficult.
Step 2: Inspirational Letters
I read about one experiment: employees were divided into three groups; the first was praised, the second was scolded, and the third was not paid attention at all. The first two groups showed the highest productivity, and the third group had the lowest productivity. That’s why I write inspirational letters to employees every day.
Sometimes I change the letter to motivating words during the general planning meeting. The form of interaction does not matter. The main thing is to regularly demonstrate to employees attention to the work of each of them.
Step 3. Tasks and checklists
In the office, I treated employees as mere performers. She paid wages, told them what to do, and did not ask if it was convenient for them and when they could complete the task.
With employees who work remotely, the relationship is different. Any task is a mini-contract. I use an electronic task distribution system: I write checklists and enter tasks into the system. Checklists — instructions and description of the sequence of actions of the employee. This facilitates the transfer of information, helps staff navigate the heap of cases. It is also a useful tool for organizing the manager’s thoughts, and I always write my own checklists for each of my duties.
Before the deadline comes, I check if everything is clear. Then I just wait for the appointed time. If the project is multi-stage, I enter a decreasing coefficient for each day of delay in the work performed on the next stage. Employees get paid for completing projects, if they don’t do it, they get nothing.
If errors occur in the course of work, this is an occasion to review business processes or supplement the work schedule of personnel. Once I allowed to send a letter to clients without approval due to urgency, thinking that there would be only my text. Employees improvised, as a result, one word contained three errors! The letter got into the mass mailing, as a result I had to blush in front of clients and explain what happened. I didn’t break the rules again. In addition, I understand that if an employee did something wrong, perhaps the reason is that the task was simply poorly explained to him. I analyze my mistakes, correct them and make sure that they do not happen again.
Step 4. Two Effective Ways to Motivate Remote Workers
Correction factor from the performance of tasks. The tasks are completed by 30%, which means that the employee will receive 30% of the salary.
Praise and additional payment if you like the result. The amount can be small, comparable to the cost of an inexpensive gift. But you will not send a gift by mail, and an additional 200–300 USD will be a nice bonus for a remote employee.
Step 5. Compromise between the remote employee and the client
At first, clients could not get used to the fact that work for them is performed by remote employees. So, having received the finished layout, they asked to organize a meeting with the designer on the same day in order to make minor changes. Therefore, we have introduced a new position — the finalizer. It is this employee who communicates with clients in the office and makes minor edits to the finished work.
Step 6. Lack of time tracking
Seeing that employees sometimes complete tasks at three in the morning, I stopped being nervous. What do I care what they do if the task is completed on time? I myself was once an employee. And I showed maximum efficiency in those moments when I was at home, for example, on sick leave, and no one expected such results from me.
I am grateful to the crisis for learning how to work remotely. Now for me the situation when an employee works remotely is a common thing. Having moved to Moscow, she left several projects in her native Tyumen. I learned how to distribute tasks and delegate their implementation, control deadlines. Now I get great pleasure from remote work and strive to make my employees feel comfortable working with me.
Source: https://www.gd.ru/articles/9298-sotrudnik-rabotaet-udalenno