Having remote employees can make life much easier on both them and you, but it does come with challenges. When you have remote employees, you have to work extra hard to make sure that they are part of your team, and this can absolutely be difficult. Fortunately, with attention and effort, you can avoid isolating these employees. Here are three ways you can do that.
Getting Them Involved
It can become too easy to almost “forget” that remote employees are still full-fledged members of your team. You have to make sure that you keep these employees involved in regular projects. To that end, make sure that you assign them work that requires communication and collaboration with other coworkers and projects. Go out of your way to solicit their advice and give them assignments that require them to interact on a regular basis with members of your management team or directly with clients. This ensures that they are fully integrated with your office and that other employees will rely on their expertise.
Regular Communication
Communicating with employees on a regular basis is absolutely necessary. This ensures that your employee has the chance to regularly catch up, check-in, and get the guidance and assistance that they need. Ideally, your employee is regularly communicating with you, their manager, or their clients throughout the day. Emails are good, and virtual conferences have some benefits, but in-person interaction can help a remote employee feel more connected to the company.
Periodic In-Person Meetings
Yes, keeping someone working at home can be great, but that doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t regularly get together in person. Inviting someone to your physical office ensures that they never drift too far from the home base and allows your remote worker to regularly meet face to face with both you and your coworkers. This will likely give everyone a chance to catch up and ensure that the physical presence of your employee is not forgotten. It doesn’t have to be too often, but this should occur on a regular, scheduled basis in order to ensure that the employee’s physical presence is adequate.
The benefits of remote employees are numerous, but that is not to say that it doesn’t come with some extremely unique challenges that require you to change your managing style and work differently in order to make sure that your remote employees do not become too isolated. Fortunately, these tips will allow you to better manage these employees and ensure that they are fully integrated with your team.
