The management of remote employees is a far much different experience than managing office employees. Even though managing such employees can be a huge challenge, it is possible to effectively manage them and achieve desirable results in the long term. However, in scenarios like a disaster management or construction works, an on-site supervisor must be present. As mentioned, managing remote employees comes with various challenges and are discussed as below.
Management of remote staff comes with poor communication as a key challenge in the endeavor to achieve project success by a team leader (Riccucci, 2017). It may result from different dialects among the remote employees or language barriers which might lead to transmission of wrong or inaccurate feedback. It is relatively easy for a leader to communicate with the office or immediate workforce than it is with remote ones.
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Secondly, the chances of the inability to track employee productivity in such a setting are very high because a team leader is unable to see them physically and see the amount of work they do day in day out, and in such a setting, an employee may take advantage of such a situation and slack off (Riccucci, 2017).
Lastly, employee trust can also be a big challenge. Even though a team leader maybe checking the progress of the employees and their productivity, it ultimately comes down to the issue of trust. In often cases, a team leader may have problems trusting their employees who are at distant places because they are not always there to check in, which will, therefore, limit productivity (Wachter & Yorio, 2014).
Solution to difficulties that comes with the management of remote employees includes the team leader and the company as a whole putting in place appropriate communication tools and channels to ensure a regular flow of information at all times and letting them know that it is crucial for them to communicate. As a team leader, one should put in place appropriate tools to monitor employee productivity even at remote places and also putting in place the necessary metrics of the project (Wachter & Yorio, 2014).
A team leader should be able to trust that his/her employees are doing what they are getting paid to do for starters. In this way, he/she will be able to build trust with the employees without having to check in regularly and letting them know that as a leader you are there to help at any time (Riccucci, 2017).
References
Riccucci, N. M. (Ed.). (2017). Public personnel management: Current concerns, future challenges . Routledge.
Wachter, J. K., & Yorio, P. L. (2014). A system of safety management practices and worker engagement for reducing and preventing accidents: An empirical and theoretical investigation. Accident Analysis & Prevention , 68 , 117-130.
