Working and Managing Remotely - Fundamentals for Managers Training Course in Dubai, UAE

Managing Remote Teams - Additional Course Info

We live in a very dynamic and rapidly changing world. Even 10-20 years ago the idea of managing remote teams sounded unusual. Remote workforce management – What it that, how it works and why do we need it? Nobody asks these questions now. Time goes on and supervising telecommuting employees becomes a leading trend in many companies from small businesses to giants such as IBM, Apple, Amazon, etc.

According to the research conducted by Flexjobs, the remote work sector has grown by nearly 160% over the past 12 years. Why is this happening? There are a number of objective reasons for that:

1. Saving employee’s time and employer’s money. Suppose you spend 1 hour daily to get to work. That is almost 530 hours or 22 days in a year! This is a full working month (including weekends). Now let's look from the employer’s point of view. The rental price of 1 sq. meter of office in Dubai starts at $150 for a month. For an average company with 50 employees, you need an office of at least 500 square meters. But what if you transfer them home? That will be $75,000 saving per month. A substantial amount, isn’t it?
2. Freedom and flexible schedule. Not everyone likes a standard working day from 9:00 to 18:00. Some are more productive in the evening, others in the morning while there are those who prefer to work at night. Besides, freedom in choosing a convenient workplace also adds a plus to the productivity and loyalty of employees. Surely, with remote work, you will have deadlines for tasks and certain responsibilities, but still, we cannot compare it with ordinary office work.
3. Less stress. In remote work, you cannot avoid communicating with superiors, colleagues, and customers if your position implies that, but communication is remote, which means you will be less stressed. There’s no need to hurry to your office during rush hours, and that also reduces stress.
4. A balance between personal life and work. When working remotely, an employee has much more opportunities to solve any personal affairs, to communicate with relatives and friends, and this fact increases the level of loyalty and productivity. True, in order to achieve the desired productivity, you need good managerial skills of a leader for the proper organization of work on the part of a manager.
5. High productivity. If you are not in the office all day, then the main criteria by which your work will be evaluated is its volume and quality of works done. It simply does not make sense for you to pretend any activity during remote work: you will only harm yourself by delaying the time it takes to complete a task.

But all these advantages are possible only with the skillful management of remote employees and remote teams. And for this, you will need to overcome difficulties at the stage of organization and avoid typical mistakes.

Challenges of managing remote employees

On your way to the desired productivity in managing remote employees, you will face a number of challenges, including the following ones:

• Communication problem due to work time mismatch.
• The problem of a single workflow.
• The problem of tracking progress by tasks.
• The problem of employee control.
• The problem of resolving conflicts and disputes.

With the team fragmentation in space and time, a lot of difficulties arise for communication, the efficiency of interaction, mutual understanding, etc. and all this must be resolved by a manager. The main thing here is an integrated approach and proper preparation. Both managers and employees must use the same rules and principles.

How to manage remote teams

Here we consider the basic scheme for managing a remote team and general recommendations of how to do it right. If you think that remote work cannot be as productive as the one conducted within any office, you’re wrong. However, remote employee management requires an understanding of how to organize and control everything correctly and the ability to use basic tools. So, here are some basic guidelines on how to manage staff remotely.

1. The good work of a remote team begins with a manager. Therefore, the first point is to prepare a future leader for remote work. A manager has to master the principles of remote communication, control, and motivation, as well as a number of software products. After that, proceed to do team study. All employees who will be part of the remote team will also have to master the basic principles and rules for organizing such work, as well as the same tools as a manager.
2. Agree on everything before starting work. Just like in case of hiring an office employee, immediately discuss the responsibilities, operation mode, expected results. All participants in the workflow must clearly understand their own roles and responsibilities. Everyone should know the general rules. Without this, the effective work of the team is impossible.
3. Take care of communication. You need to find convenient virtual communication tools – instant messengers for a quick discussion of current issues, skype for group meetings, task manager for file sharing. It is important not to lose or duplicate information, and ensure that tasks are clear to everyone. Everything should be crystal and simple. Next, create a single information space, where common documents and everything that is necessary for comfortable work will be laid out. And the most important rule: always ask employees to say if they understood the task.
4. Give freedom to your employees (within the general plan, of course). It is very important to allow initiative and delegate tasks to competent specialists. Thus you not only improve the atmosphere in a team but also free up time for more important things. But you should not forget about control and monitoring; no one has canceled these tasks for a manager. Distribute tasks and monitor their implementation without interfering with the workflow. CRM-system will help with that.
5. Engage in motivation. Understanding of mission and values is the foundation for the work of a remote team. Therefore, general motivational meetings are required: all project participants must understand where the company is going to, what the difficulties are, and what will allow a team to be more effective than before. Support and implement employee initiatives. Try to praise and be thankful, more often than we are all used to.

We hope that our basic recommendations on how to manage a remote team will help you organize this process in your company.

Tips and best practices managing remote employees

Here are some useful tips on managing remote employees.

• Keep your group chats up and running. This will give the effect of a real office when everyone can discuss current issues in real-time mode.
• Use tools to communicate maximally efficiently. E-mail, instant messengers, and chats are a must-have for remote teams, but for truly effective communication, you will need tools for remote control between PCs, screen sharing tools, screen capture tools, etc.
• Actively use cloud services. If you have a document that is edited by many people, you will need Google Drive, Dropbox, etc. Project management platforms also have file sharing and collaboration features.
• Implement a process control system. Managing remote employees means that everyone can be in own universe. Your employees may develop their own processes and procedures, which may not correspond with the way others work. It is best to have a documented, standardized way of working.
• Develop the standard process for training new employees. When hiring, make sure that they have completed the training program and can work with the rest of the team in a single coordinate system.
• Create a sense of team spirit. Remote work may require additional efforts to maintain a sense of loyalty to your team. Employees should be aware that they not only contribute to the achievement of the goals of their team but are also valuable in achieving the success of the company. Team motivation is an important task in managing remote employees.
• Do everything so that people feel not as separate workers, but as a real part of your team and company. It's worth it.

Managing remote employees training course

As you can see, managing remote employees is a complex task that includes several aspects. In order to establish the whole process, specialized training is needed, and first of all, it concerns managers, because most of the tasks lie on them. Training, courses, and self-study with specialized books will help to cope with this.