![]() ![]() These metrics are easy to see and quantify, making us managers feel secure that we’re getting the most out of our employees. New remote team leads tend to emphasize inputs as a measurement of productivity - things like hours worked, emails sent, calls made, message response time. So if time tracking and activity monitoring isn’t the answer, what should you be focusing on instead? Focus on outputs over inputs Our Head of Marketing wrote a more in-depth article on how to build a strong foundation of trust in a remote “workplace”. Approach managing remote employees from a place of empathy. Even seasoned remote workers are currently struggling to be as productive as normal. But if someone misses a deadline or you feel they aren’t getting enough done, give them the benefit of the doubt - especially under current circumstances, and particularly if they have young children at home too. Remote work requires individual accountability or everything falls apart. Instead, default to trusting that you’ve hired the right people and that they’re capable of working at a high level, whether or not they’re in an office. Trying to create a mini surveillance state or expecting people to respond to messages within 5 minutes to prove they’re “at work” is only going to alienate your workforce and get in the way of them actually doing their jobs. Resist the temptation to create a mini surveillance state to make sure your employees are being productive. While office-bound employees “clock in” for an 8-hour workday, they usually average about 3 hours of “real work” on any given day. Hours worked is a terrible measure of productivity. My answer, which managers usually don’t expect to hear, is: you have to start with trust.ĭon’t waste valuable time, energy, and resources setting up systems to track employees’ every hour spent working. One of the first questions new or aspiring remote team leaders always ask me goes something like this: “I want to make sure my employees are actually working, how can I best track their performance?” Implied in this question is the assumption that employees will take advantage of the situation by doing the least amount of work possible. If you find yourself suddenly managing a team that was once in the office, but is now working from home, this section is for you. ![]() ![]() But if you’re making a sudden - and possibly temporary - transition to remote work, this article will cover the practical tips I’ve learned over the last decade working remotely that any company, team, manager, or employee can put into practice right away. If you’re optimizing your team and workflow for long-term remote work, then your best bet is to dive straight into our in-depth Remote Work guides and other remote work articles. But it does require challenging some entrenched habits and mindsets and building new ones to take full advantage of what remote work has to offer, while minimizing the downsides. None of this is rocket science - any team, any company, and any individual can make the leap to remote work. I’ve learned from these conversations that there are some relatively small changes companies, managers, and individuals can make that will have massive effects on productivity, teamwork, morale, and sanity. As the Head of Business Development at Doist, I’ve spent the last few weeks talking with team leaders who have suddenly been forced to “go remote”.
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