6 Tried and Tested Tips for Managing Remote Employees

Trust and collaboration are the keys to effective remote workforce management. But that's easier said than done.

The pandemic took remote workforce management from an option to a necessity, and businesses had to adapt fast. Many are now realizing the long-term benefits of managing remote employees: no on-premise costs, a larger and more diverse hiring pool, and the freedom to blend work and travel, to name a few. But to stick with a remote workforce in the long run successfully, it needs to be done right, and with the right tools.

Tech.co has had a remote workforce since our founding in 2006, so we know a thing or two about how to do it well. Our team spans three states in the US and three countries in Europe, across multiple time zones. So, what have we learned?

Coming up:

What Is Remote Workforce Management?

A remote workforce is a group of employees in a team or company who work offsite and are physically isolated from one another, some or all of the time, rather than together at a single office location. Remote workforce management is a set of processes that a business uses to maintain the productivity of employees who are physically distributed.

In other words, if any members of your team work from home some or all of the time, or from any place that's separate from you, then you're part of a remote workforce – and managing those team members' output and progression is remote workforce management.

The Pew Research Center found that 70% of workers were fulfilling their duties remotely in December 2020, compared to just 20% the year earlier. Thanks to today's internet infrastructure, US workers can work just as well from home, and can save an average of 54 minutes per day of commute time in the bargain. It's an attractive proposition.

With the correct technology and practices, a remote workforce is just as effective as an on-premise workforce. In fact, some studies have found that it may be even better – one academic survey of more than 30,000 workers logged monthly responses for a period from May 2020 until March 2021, and found that 40% of respondents reported greater productivity working remotely than at the office, with only 15% saying they were less productive after the switch.

Remote Working vs Hybrid Working

Remote workforces aren't always fully remote. Some companies operate from one main office location, with only a percentage of employees operating remotely. This is called a hybrid workforce, or a workforce with both in-office and remote workers.

Hybrid workforces can take many forms. At Tech.co we have some employees who work from the main office five days a week, some who come in for two or three days a week, and some who live and work a significant distance away, but fly in once or twice a year to touch base.

Providing both an in-person hub and remote flexibility means staff can opt for their preferred arrangement, something that is particularly useful for members of the team with children to look after.

Some employers offer flexible shared workspaces through companies such as WeWork, to provide an in-office experience to otherwise fully remote employees. There's no one right way to do it. But there may be wrong ways – which brings us to our top tips to know before diving into remote workforce management.

6 Top Tips for Managing Remote Employees

Managing remote employees isn't entirely different from managing in-office team members. Many typical management goals remain the same: you'll want to encourage two-way communication and daily productivity while giving employees chances at both short- and long-term career advancement. But the change in environment means those goals must be made more explicit and handled with less face-to-face guidance.

Here are the best tips we can give you, based on our 15+ years of experience.

1. Establish Clear Expectations for Virtual Conduct

Social norms might be easy to figure out in person, but a remote workplace needs to make them more explicit to ensure everyone's working together effectively.

Teams should discuss and decide on their preferred virtual collaboration conduct, such as how promptly co-workers should expect a response to a question.

We recommend taking advantage of business communications platforms like Slack (what we use), which can let you set different statuses such as ‘do not disturb', ‘on lunch' or ‘out of office'. Tools such as Google Calendar allow you to display your standard working hours as well as arrange meetings, and can integrate with tools like Slack.

When working remotely, the more information you can convey to one another about the nature of your workday, the better the team's synergy will be.

2. Check In on Employees Even When Nothing Is Wrong

There are plenty of reasons staff may choose to work remotely, but it can be a strange and lonely experience for them if they're kept out of the loop. With no daily coffee run or passing small talk, it's easy for remote employees to feel disconnected from members of the team who see one another on a more frequent basis.

If a remote worker is struggling, they may not feel able to reach out in the same way as they would in the office – so you've got to be proactive about keeping in touch, and ensure that regular contact becomes the norm.

Kathryn Smithson, Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) at PathSocial, suggests that managers should check in on employees even when nothing is wrong.

“Meetings on a regular basis build a culture of open communication… 1:1s are an excellent way to stay on top of progress toward goals and get to know your colleagues better, (and) when things go wrong, you will be better able to put out the flames before they can spread.”

Besides, if you're only contacting employees when something is wrong, you run the risk that employees will start to associate your presence with exclusively negative interactions, and you can bet your bottom dollar they won't stick around for long.

3. Celebrate Achievements and Make Time to Socialize

In addition to checking in on employees at appropriate points during the day/week, it is crucial to celebrate your team's achievements and put aside time to socialize with them, even if they're fully remote team members.

Celebrating milestones your team members have reached or outstanding work they've completed can have a huge impact on productivity and overall success. Last year, a Great Place to Work study revealed that 37% of workers think the biggest driver for great work is recognition – more than training, promotions, and even salary raises – so communicating to staff that you can see they've gone above and beyond can really make a difference.

On top of positive, ‘work-related' catch-ups, however, hosting additional meetings where the ultimate goal is team bonding and having fun will also contribute massively to your team's morale.

After-work quizzes, weekly and monthly roundups of company ‘wins', one-to-one sessions, and appraisals are all examples of meetings that could boost your team's cohesion and staff morale. There are a surprising number of activities that can actually be done remotely, from wine tasting to mock game shows (we'd highly recommend recreating Family Feud), and you could even get staff to take it in turns to run virtual social events.

4. Set Team and Individual Goals

Every company has performance goals, whether that's beating a certain competitor, growing revenue a certain amount or securing that next round of funding. It's easy to get bogged down tracking that overall end goal, and forget to take a step back and set team goals on a regular basis.

Making sure to set and communicate team goals is one of the most important things you can do to keep your team on the same page, no matter where they are. This blends well with a collaborative, results-oriented management strategy, and can add some structure to remote meetings and check-ins. It can also help replace or temper the granular time tracking that often discourages remote workers.

Employees who are aligned with a common end goal can then develop their own personal objectives to reach it, says Corey Walters, founder and CEO of online marketplace Here:

“The best way to measure success in (a hybrid) environment is to ensure each person understands their responsibilities and meets deadlines accordingly, which can be tracked through quantitative KPIs to determine team efficiency.”

Individual goals for specific staff members that contribute to the team goal can be tracked with performance management software.

Leaving staff members wondering exactly what their manager expects of them is a recipe for disaster. Even a motivated, enthusiastic staff member will struggle to move in the right direction if they're never told what that direction is.

5. Don't Forget About Remote Training

Leave plenty of space for training and e-learning if your team is working remotely, as most educational material will need to be self-taught. Fortunately, there are a wealth of training resources for you to choose from online, including ways to make online courses, tests, and presentations that employees can do at their own pace. Degreed, Udemy, Workday and Cornerstone are all popular choices.

If utilized correctly, remote training courses and e-learning modules will contribute to your employees' professional development whilst also refreshing them on important aspects of their roles. For example, cybersecurity e-learning modules that cover important principles – such as ensuring confidential data is being stored correctly – can be repeated every six to 12 months to ensure best practices are being maintained.

E-learning courses, and all types of remote training, will also have positive consequences for your business' management team. They'll free up valuable time that would otherwise have been used to host training sessions on the same topics or rectify mistakes made by poorly trained employees.

6. Install the Right Technology

As anyone who's rushed to install Zoom or Teams over the past couple of years will know, having the right technology to actually implement all of the tips discussed above is just as crucial as following the tips themselves.

Luckily, there's a whole world of tools out there specifically designed to help your team flourish in remote settings. In fact, remote workforce software and prices are only getting more and more competitive as the number of remote workers continues to increase. We've listed our must-have software picks below.

Best Remote Workforce Management Software

As with most workplace challenges, there are solutions in software. The technologies that a remote manager is likely to find the most useful can be broken down into a few general categories, some of which correspond to certain challenges and tips mentioned in this article:

Here at Tech.co, we've researched all the remote workforce management software we're about to discuss in this section (as well as plenty of others that we thought weren't so good) and subjected them to rigorous testing processes that take weeks to complete. Plus, all members of the Tech.co team are either fully remote or taking a hybrid approach to work, so we use a lot of the tools we're about to talk about on a daily basis, too.

Web Conferencing Services

The most important tool for a modern remote workforce is a good video conferencing service that allows for face-to-virtual-face conversations and meetings.

Although few pieces of tech can replicate all the important elements of an in-person conversation, many of the top providers are getting pretty good at it. The number of updates that have been rolled out since the mass shift to remote working in 2020 is staggering, and now video conferencing services like Microsoft Teams have a long list of useful features.

Our tests found that the best video conferencing service is GoToMeeting, thanks to superior video and audio quality, good features and user experience, and a lower price than comparable services. Another strong option is Google Meet, which is a great option if you're already a Google Workspace user because it will seamlessly integrate with Google Docs, your calendar, and Gmail.