Despite a growing trend towards distributed workforces, and increasing numbers of telecommute/work-from home jobs, folks seem to be on their own to figure out how to address this shifting paradigm with regards to working with colleagues they may never see face to face. Companies may be slow to recognise that a distributed workforce can be a good thing, when managed well. Technologies exist that can facilitate this…some of these may be tried and true, others may be banned currently. The simple truth is that if you want to have a distributed work force, you will have to make some accommodations, but they should be relatively simple and inexpensive to do.
I know that when I was faced with managing a team that consisted of one engineer in the same location as me, two ‘dotted-line’ reports in the same state but different cities, and another dozen plus on the other side of the world, I was a little concerned about how to proceed. There wasn’t anything in college to prepare me for this, and my manager just told me that she was sure I’d figure it out. She was right, I did. This post is three parts what I have found that worked for me, and two parts what I think folks who have not worked remotely before need to know. Call it Remote Workforce 101.
Disclaimer
I currently work remotely. While I have managed teams in person, and have managed direct and indirect reports all over the United States, Western Europe, and India in the past, I am not currently doing so. I am working with folks all over the country. While the bulk of my peers go into the same office every day, I have interactions with others scattered through out the country just as frequently. While I have seven years of management experience, graduated with a degree in Accounting, studied enough hours in Management under Dr. Al Bolton* to earn a minor (and three others besides,) and have attended two different graduate schools of business, all of the following is anecdotal. It’s worked for me, and on me, so I think it’s worth a try. Also, you should know that of all the management theory books I have read, I only found the following worth keeping…
so, with that in mind, read on if you are so inclined.
Basic interactions
We take for granted the everyday casual interactions we have with others in the office. From running into your colleagues at the elevator, to chatting in the hall, to just dropping by the cubicle to shoot the breeze…these things happen daily and we don’t give them a second thought. We can get a read on how someone’s day is going by their expressions, or the way the carry themselves as they walk. If they need to bounce an idea of someone else, or just get a word of encouragement, there are countless opportunities each day to have direct interaction with peers. The remote worker doesn’t get this. They have to use email, the telephone, and perhaps instant messaging to fill in for human contact. As such, it is vital that these communication methods be treated with the same importance and attention to detail that you would give a face to face encounter with someone. Keep in mind…
- You don’t see them in the hall.
So you don’t get the non-verbal cues. - There are no break room encounters.
So most of your interactions will default to business purposes only unless you make the effort to expand upon that. - You can’t exactly go out for lunch with them.
It is the social interactions that build a sense of team and esprit de corps. - There are no drive-bys/walk-ups.
So there is little opportunity for feedback, check-ins, or other little adjustments to keep the machine running. - Your open door? Not so much.
Getting some one-on-one time requires extraordinary efforts. You cannot be seen to be approachable if you cannot be seen.
Remote substitutions
Lacking that direct contact, you need to go out of your way to implement substitutions. Yes, you do, person in charge. You’re the manager, they are the managed. Lead by example, set the tone, and they will follow. It is critical that you do set this tone, and then stick with it, even when it would be more convenient to back-burner it, or skip it during extremely busy times, with the wink and a promise that you will get back to it soon. If you are not willing to commit to this, don’t even bother starting it. A false start here will do more damage than doing nothing at all. You can and should adapt your approaches as you find what works for you and your team, but you must be seen making that effort. Abandoning it, and then trying to resume it, will make the task all that much more difficult to complete. It’s like exercise…once you start, and make it a routine, it is easy to keep going. Try it a couple of times, skip a couple of days, try to get back to it, and you’ll find it much more unpleasant.
And yes, this is something for you, the manager, to do. Expecting your team to take the initiative is like expecting them to manage themselves…do you really want to go there? I didn’t think so. Here are the tasks that you need to make routine. For most, determining whether they are a daily or a weekly item is something you will need to feel out as you go. What I have seen work is listed below.
- Make it a point to check in.
Make some kind of contact each day. See how things are going…not just with work but personally as well. If they were in front of you, you’d talk about the big game, or last night’s episode of Lost, or the traffic this morning. Try to establish a similar rapport. - Weekly team calls.
Schedule a weekly team meeting, and stick to it! Go over what was done for the week or what needs to be done this week, the latest company news, and anything else that is common knowledge in the office. It’s only common knowledge to the people who’ve heard it, and nothing will make a remote user fill more detached than being the only one who hasn’t heard the latest. - Instant messaging.
Use it. Use it well, and treat it as much as you can like a conversation. Your remote workers may look at it as the most interactive and direct method of communicating with you. They can’t see that you caught a call, or someone walked into your office, so if you are in the middle of an IM session with them and have to pause…TELL THEM! Else, this is the cyber equivalent of them asking you a question to your face and you walking away without a word. They’re left wondering what they said that was wrong, or waiting for you to provide a response. Company policy prohibits IM? Change it. There are in-house IM solutions that you can use, like OCS or Jabber, and this is a vital component of a distributed work-force. Require your team to use it. - Telephone etiquette.
My personal pet peeve is when someone says "you can call me anytime" and then, every time I do, I go into voicemail. I am not saying you should answer every call you get from a remote worker, but you’d better respond to the voicemails or emails. Use your calendar app to show when you are in meetings, and use your status in IM so that they can see if you are busy/do not disturb, in a meeting, off site, etc. If you can’t take a call, but are on IM, a quick message that you are jammed up and will get back to them as soon as you can is much more interactive than your recorded voicemail greeting/ Remember, you have to substitute for the "visual cues" here. Remote workers can’t just peek around the corner to see if you are busy. - Web-cams.
This was the best thing I ever implemented as far as getting a remote team to feel connected. Disembodied voices are one thing, faces that can be put to names are something else. While fancier video conferencing solutions like those from Polycom or Cisco MeetingPlace are great, inexpensive Labtec webcams are good enough. Visually interacting just makes folks feel less detached. That’s a good thing. - Regular visits to HQ.
Even if regular is only once a year, bring them out. If possible, get the entire team together at the same time, and spend at least as much time on social activities as you do on work. Don’t consider that an unimportant thing to do unless you want to send the message that they are not important enough to bring out to the offices for a week. If they are in another country, that may be something you just have to accept, but in country should be affordable and manageable. - Remote presentations
If you are a true geek, you love to whiteboard. We all do. I can’t answer even simple questions without subconsciously reaching for a dry erase marker. I think the scent must have some primal link to my thought processes. Now if they could make coffee scented markers…mmmm…coffee. Wait, where was I? Oh yes, use some form of desktop sharing software for EVERY meeting. Whether it is with GoToMeeting, WebEx, Fuze, Office Communication Server, etc. you want a visual element to every meeting. Having nothing but audio is a sure way to lose folks’ attention. Invest in a smart board, or a tablet, or just a quality webcam if you are going to whiteboard anything. Your remote folks need to see in order to be fully engaged. - Respect the time zones.
The Earth is curved, the Sun rises in the East and sets in the West and people usually work based on the Sun’s position relative to them. If you are on the East Coast of the US, don’t schedule afternoon meetings and expect your UK teammates to be thrilled. Don’t call your guy in Oregon first thing in your morning with a question. The more spread out the team is, the harder it is going to be to find a sweet spot for meetings when everyone is ‘at work.’ Folks will have to be flexible, and they will be, as long as you give advanced notice of what is happening and what is needed, and you try to shift the burden from one event to the next, so the same guy is not always staying up until 2100 for a meeting. If someone comes online three hours earlier than you, remember that means that go offline three hours earlier too. If you can’t deal with that, set the expectation before hiring them that they will be working to your time zone, or limit your candidate pool to 15 degree slices of longitude.
*Dr. Bolton was Professor Emeritus at Averett University, head of the School if Business, my favourite professor of management, and an authority on the Hawthorne Studies. I had so much respect for the man, that he is, to this day, one of only three people ever to call me "Eddie" regularly and get away with it. Of all the things I collected during college, I still have the little AT&T mechanical telephone relay that was actually produced during the Hawthorne Studies.<♫> The more you know </♫>
While these points might not work for everyone, and they will require some extra effort, they can go a long way towards reducing the isolation remote-workers encounter, and will help the remote manager be more in touch with what is going on day to day with the employees that aren’t seen daily. Everyone is different however, so it is just as important for you to take the pulse of things, and adjust your methods accordingly. Some remote workers may need more, some may want less. This is more of a recipe, than a chemical formula. Season to taste. One of Microsoft’s greatest strengths when it comes to how they treat their employees (contingent staff, not so much,) is recognising that people are different, and may require different approaches. One of Ingersoll Rand’s greatest failings is not understanding that people are different and cannot all be managed to a one size fits all check-list. People are people…remember that and you will do just fine. Being seen making the honest effort, and proactively seeking feedback, is much more important than getting it right the first time.
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