How to ensure the efficiency of your remote management?
18 January 2018
Read by 3587 persons
The relocation of companies, the implementation of new organizational forms, and the advent of new technologies have given rise to a new form of management called "remote management". Whether it is managing consultants made available to clients, salespeople in the field, or employees based on other sites or even abroad, cases of remote management have multiplied, along with the problems related to communication, performance monitoring, and team spirit.
The major challenge of remote management is to succeed in maintaining proximity with each member of your teams while ensuring regular reporting. Here are some rules to follow to help you be effective in your remote management.
Structure your remote management
It is certain that with a remote team, instructions cannot be transmitted gradually as is done in the context of proximity management. It is therefore essential, from the outset of this remote organization, to define and rely on precise and explicit rules.
Who does what? What processes? What responsibilities are shared? Do not hesitate to define in writing and clearly transmit all aspects of this future hierarchical remote relationship.
Indeed, the implementation of a clear work framework and organization will aim to structure the activity and reduce the feeling of isolation of some team members.
Maintain and strengthen the hierarchical link
You must absolutely maintain the relationship with your teams, especially when they work thousands of kilometers away from you. To do this, it is essential to schedule weekly telephone or videoconference appointments to review their activity, their achievements, and their progress, but also to provide them with information they do not know due to the distance.
Beyond the information exchanged, you will also be able to sense their state of mind and motivation, indicators that are just as essential but that are not found in reports or emails.
Be available
When working far from your teams, you must know how to be particularly available. However, this is far from obvious because a remote employee who does not know their manager's schedule is likely to call when the manager is online, in a meeting, or in an appointment.
You must therefore set up periods of availability that you will integrate and share with them in your calendar and during which you commit to responding to requests from your remote employees.
Take advantage of the new technologies that we now have at our disposal and which today provide a whole range of solutions to facilitate teamwork despite the distance (shared documents and calendars, videoconferences, internal chat).
Trust
Apart from the fact that remote management requires adapted methods, techniques, and practices, it is essential for effective management that you know how to trust your employees and delegate.
If you try to control everything they do, your employee will feel this as a lack of trust, a likely source of demotivation. Learn to let go, provide your employee with a framework that allows them to do their job well (transmit useful information, ensure their capabilities...), and for the rest, the results will speak for themselves...
Implementing these tips should help you succeed in your remote management and make this very special organization a success.
However, a physical meeting remains necessary in some cases, particularly during reframing sessions, which will never have as much effect by phone, and annual interviews, which call for face-to-face meetings, to improve communication, exchange, and interaction, which are essential for all effective management, whether it is ultimately close or remote.
Philippe Montant
General Manager ReKrute
The major challenge of remote management is to succeed in maintaining proximity with each member of your teams while ensuring regular reporting. Here are some rules to follow to help you be effective in your remote management.
Structure your remote management
It is certain that with a remote team, instructions cannot be transmitted gradually as is done in the context of proximity management. It is therefore essential, from the outset of this remote organization, to define and rely on precise and explicit rules.
Who does what? What processes? What responsibilities are shared? Do not hesitate to define in writing and clearly transmit all aspects of this future hierarchical remote relationship.
Indeed, the implementation of a clear work framework and organization will aim to structure the activity and reduce the feeling of isolation of some team members.
Maintain and strengthen the hierarchical link
You must absolutely maintain the relationship with your teams, especially when they work thousands of kilometers away from you. To do this, it is essential to schedule weekly telephone or videoconference appointments to review their activity, their achievements, and their progress, but also to provide them with information they do not know due to the distance.
Beyond the information exchanged, you will also be able to sense their state of mind and motivation, indicators that are just as essential but that are not found in reports or emails.
Be available
When working far from your teams, you must know how to be particularly available. However, this is far from obvious because a remote employee who does not know their manager's schedule is likely to call when the manager is online, in a meeting, or in an appointment.
You must therefore set up periods of availability that you will integrate and share with them in your calendar and during which you commit to responding to requests from your remote employees.
Take advantage of the new technologies that we now have at our disposal and which today provide a whole range of solutions to facilitate teamwork despite the distance (shared documents and calendars, videoconferences, internal chat).
Trust
Apart from the fact that remote management requires adapted methods, techniques, and practices, it is essential for effective management that you know how to trust your employees and delegate.
If you try to control everything they do, your employee will feel this as a lack of trust, a likely source of demotivation. Learn to let go, provide your employee with a framework that allows them to do their job well (transmit useful information, ensure their capabilities...), and for the rest, the results will speak for themselves...
Implementing these tips should help you succeed in your remote management and make this very special organization a success.
However, a physical meeting remains necessary in some cases, particularly during reframing sessions, which will never have as much effect by phone, and annual interviews, which call for face-to-face meetings, to improve communication, exchange, and interaction, which are essential for all effective management, whether it is ultimately close or remote.
Philippe Montant
General Manager ReKrute
