11 remote command management methods

Original author: Scott Gerber
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If you start hiring people from all over the world, then this can unrecognizably change your startup - if only you will treat your employees well.

Great employees working remotely are now the secret weapon of many successful startups. Instead of relying on people who live close to the office (and often in the most expensive market), they hire the very best talents from around the world to help them move on with their mission.

Some companies prefer the entire staff to work remotely, which also has its own difficulties. In others, along with team members who are in the office, there are employees working remotely. Managing remote and sedentary teams can be challenging.

And so I interviewed 11 entrepreneurs from our council to share their own ideas for managing remote employees - from basic communication strategies to specific work processes.

Online chat


“The biggest problem in managing employees working remotely is to reduce communication channels. The reason for this is the fact that they do not work in the same office, and most likely their working hours do not match. In order to somehow deal with this, our team organizes 15 minutes every day in the morning at Slack to discuss what we worked on yesterday, what are our plans for today, and also all those things that can complicate our tasks. Communication is the most important thing, and such meetings help us all keep up the pace. ”

Jessica Oralkan, Collecteurs

Daily call


“At the very beginning, we used all the unusual software for communication between employees and relied on digital methods of communication with team members working“ remotely ”. This did not produce the expected results for several reasons. Firstly, people easily cease to feel unity if they do not communicate in real life. Therefore, the relationship “we are VS them” may develop. Secondly, in digital communication there is no place for nuances, assumptions and uncertainty. Thirdly, by phoning you can find out and do more than if you corresponded.

In order to fix everything, we began to practice daily calls, but this was not enough. Now we call each day, and for all calls, reports are compiled and sent to the team. This helps us to avoid wasting time and money due to misunderstanding, and through such communication, the spirit of partnership is maintained, which strengthens teamwork and a common goal. This is an old school method, but it works great. ”

Andrew Thomas, SkyBell Video Doorbell

Daily meetings


“I manage the headquarters of employees, who are mainly in neighboring states, some work from more distant places. Yes, and I myself work in a remote site. To manage the teams of our office employees and people working remotely, we use one of Rockefeller's methods: we conduct daily board meetings, and then teams. As a rule, this takes place in a videoconference mode. In the beginning, all our employees hated it and complained. However, I believe that such an approach has provided us with threefold growth. Now that we are all used to such meetings, the team is looking forward to receiving feedback and answers to questions about the projects. I highly recommend holding such daily meetings. ”

Kim Walsh-Phillips, Elite Digital Group

Do not overdo it with management


“Remember that your employees working remotely can sometimes provide your company with unique sets of knowledge and skills that internal employees do not have. Instead of being extremely strict and trying daily to control their time and effectiveness, just give them the freedom that employees need in a remote location. Evaluate the results of their work, and while they get in touch and work as efficiently as others, consider them your secret weapon. Constant checks and monitoring of each step will only become a source of unnecessary stress and reduce their productivity. ”

Blair Thomas, EMerchantBroker

One chat for everyone


“Now there are many messengers on the market. Just make sure that your entire team must always use one chat, and use a single management software. Thus, everyone is aware of who is doing what, and those working remotely can just as effectively resolve issues as if they were in the office. ”

Matt Doyle, Excel Builders

Everyone should know about time zones


“We have two offices in different parts of the world and many employees working remotely. When we hire new people, we are very scrupulous in ensuring that the team is aware of where they are and in what time zone they will work. Also, these data can be seen in the profile of each employee, so that everyone can check them. When a team knows where everyone works from, it helps to better organize tasks and set up a schedule. ”

Micah Johnson, GoFanbase

Let the remote employees have fun with everyone


“One of the key members of our team works remotely, and we spent a lot of time drawing up a strategy for communicating with her regarding working issues. However, in the end, we noticed that she misses those moments that are designed to unite the team - simple communication and fun in the office. Then we decided during the informal communication of the team to call her on Skype, and also became more attentive so that she could thus participate in unexpected celebrations that signify anything good. And this greatly influenced her relationship with the team and made our collaboration even more enjoyable. ”

Martina Welke, Zealyst

Use one platform


“We recently started using continuous feedback and a sharing platform called WeVue. This allows team members to work effectively with each other and with the company to solve business problems. This helps us minimize the need for meetings and gives people the opportunity to vote on company decisions that affect them. ”

Chris Cancialosi, GothamCulture

Create an internal blog


“Use a blogging tool like BlogIn to create a blog for internal use, and then try to draw the attention of your employees to it so that they actively use it: post updates and notes about meetings. At each meeting, we had one person who took notes and then published them along with slides and other material. Thus, people who were not at the meeting (including teams from other offices) can take part in the discussion. This decision turned out to be advantageous in terms of communication. When too much content is available on a blog to link to something specific, you can create a wiki entry or an updated document with links to the most important posts. We like Blogin because it is integrated with Slack,

Mattan Griffel, One Month

Keep employees up to date


“We try to make our employees working in a remote place feel unity with the team and be aware of the life of Allocadia. We use Slack to inform employees about news, events and events, as well as to keep them informed of all those things that happen in the daily life of our company. We also record videos of corporate meetings and presentations so that employees outside the office do not miss anything. ”

Katherine Berry, Allocadia

Invest in travel


“Our company organizes field trips twice a year. Despite the fact that it is expensive, such investments have become one of the best investments in our corporate culture that we have made. As a rule, such meetings last two days, it also happens that employees who usually work remotely come to the office for a couple of days before and after the trip, and we discuss the company's strategy, finances and important stages. But work takes no more than 25% of the time, the rest of the time is given to entertainment and games both in small teams, and for all employees of the company, for walks and good food. The only problem here is the sometimes emerging sense of inadequacy with our meager culture. But as a result, we get an intangible connection that is incredibly valuable and that is not easy to create through digital communication. ”

Fan Bi, Blank Label.

About the Author : Scott Gerber is the founder of the Young Entrepreneur Council.

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