Starting a business into foreign markets becomes a crucial step to stay competitive in a globalized economy. However, this expansion has many challenges, especially when it comes to managing your
international workforce remotely.
In this way, it becomes critical to build a strong and healthy relationship with your remote employees as they directly contribute to your company’s growth and overall productivity. That’s why in this article, we will show you the best four tips for effective
remote employee management.
4 Tips to Effectively Manage Remote Employees
1. Choose Wisely your Workforce
Hiring the right international talent for your business is complicated. You must
acknowledge their cultural and language differences, conduct interviews to determine if they can work remotely, identify if they have a good attitude and proactive personalities, and
many other aspects that are hard to manage by yourself.
For this reason,
partnering with an International Professional Employer Organization (PEO) will help you hire the right workers depending on your business needs.
PEO partners take care of interviewing candidates, providing contracts in compliance with the local labor laws, assuring their enrollment process, and any other HR task.
Even more,
you will have 24/7 online access to your employees’ information and
payroll status thanks to specialized Human Resources Management software like
Nyrhcloud.
2. Define Objectives and Clear Expectations
When managing a remote team, it is essential to communicate your business mission and values. In this sense, every employee should understand and be aligned with your company culture. This
will increase their loyalty as they create a sense of belonging even though they’re located in another country.
Also, make sure to establish clear expectations, as well as to define timelines, in order to meet your business goals. By using well-defined objectives, your remote workers will know how to manage their working hours to elevate their performance while staying focused on goals.
3. Track your Employees Progress
You
need to monitor and stay updated with your remote team progress. This means that you will have to daily check and review top project status, verifying that everyone is working according to the company’s goals.
In this case, there are different cloud-based software and online platforms that enable you to manage and track different projects or tasks. Asana, Trello, Basecamp, and LiquidPlanner are
examples of project management tools; having access to files, to-do lists, deadlines information, updates, and even get statistics about employees’ productivity.
With these collaborative tools, you can give regular feedback to your remote employees, helping them to keep improving on their tasks.
4. Maintain a Regular Communication
Nowadays, thanks to technological advancements, it is easier to communicate at any moment with your remote employees through multiple online channels. As you need to maintain regular communication, you can easily use email, online chats, and video conferencing platforms for face-to-face interaction. Some of the
most popular conference solutions are Zoom, GoToMeeting, Microsoft Teams, BlueJeans, among others.
Be sure to schedule weekly meetings to explain tasks, discuss project issues, and even provide a training course.
Nonetheless, when scheduling meetings is essential to consider your workers’ local time and respect their meal and rest breaks.
As remote working is becoming an essential part for global businesses ―where
telecommuting had an increase of 22 percent between 2017 and 2018―you must take into account these tips.
