Small businesses and startups often have to resort to the services of remote employees, which greatly reduces the cost of doing business. Especially often, designers, accountants and support staff are hired remotely. Many people are suitable for successfully coordinating such employees general principles personnel management. At the same time, in order to make the work of this kind of team as efficient as possible, in addition to traditional methods management needs to use new strategies, as well as modern digital tools. In this article, we'll share a few tips for managing a remote team.

Make consistent communications your #1 priority.

To be successful with a remote team, you need to make your employees feel as engaged as possible. When they are not in your sight, this is not an easy task. The key to solving it is constant communication, thanks to which each employee will feel like part of a cohesive team.

1. Daily meetings will help employees feel like you're really interested in how their work is going and show that you support them.
2. Weekly feedback is equally important. Especially if it is given not in the form of strict and formal meetings, but in the format online meetings, in which you sum up the results of the week together, discuss tasks and ideas for next week, and also praise your employees for their current work.
3. Quarterly reviews also contribute to strengthening the remote team. During them, you can analyze current performance and outline further development plans.

Choose the optimal digital tools

It doesn't matter whether you have a large company or a startup, you will benefit from using modern technologies and services. For efficient work You will benefit from services for setting and tracking tasks, collaborating on projects and discussing them, sharing and editing documents.

1. To discuss projects, you can use group chats in Slack, Telegram, Whatsapp as a corporate communication channel.
2. Google services such as Drive, Hangouts and Google Meet are suitable for collaborating with documents, planning meetings and video calls.
3. To manage remote team tasks, we recommend using
4. For joint discussion of projects online, there are tools such as Join.me, GoToMeeting.

Spare no resources on personal meetings

When working with a remote team, it is very important to make time for face-to-face meetings. Hold offline events in which all your employees will participate. This will help unite the existing team more effectively.

Clearly assign roles and responsibilities

When you clearly distribute roles in the team and determine the sequence of work, there will be much fewer cases of misunderstanding, and your employees will be able to plan their work correctly. work time and prioritize your tasks. Most people who successfully work remotely are self-organized and disciplined. But even the most confident and organized employees can feel anxious if their roles and responsibilities are unclear. Therefore, before starting work with each new remote employee, indicate what expectations and requirements you have for him. Be sure to provide him with the following information in a timely manner:

• Clear formulation of tasks and weekly follow-up, contacts of team members who can help
• Where are tasks recorded and what is an indicator of the effectiveness of their implementation?
• Monthly/quarterly plan to follow
• Contacts of the company's internal support service (or a competent person) to resolve questions and any remote problems, as well as a superior person who can always be contacted
• Employee information sheet: positions and contact information (email, phone numbers, social networks, etc.)

Clearly demonstrate their contribution to the company's development

Now is not the time when people stay with the same company for decades. Therefore, it is important to motivate employees to develop in a particular company and clearly show how they contribute to its growth. When people feel involved in the company's success, their work continues to be productive and effective over a longer period of time.

The main advice for managing a team is to know each employee well and perceive him as an individual, because there is not a single team that consists of the same people. Use the best tools available to stay connected, be clear about expectations and roles, and remember to support and guide employees. Then your remote team will become a truly valuable asset.

How to effectively manage a team remotely? Our new unique course “Remote Personnel Management” is about this! It is recommended for business owners, managers of remote offices and branches, and employees working in home offices.

Today, working remotely is becoming more common. It has many advantages for both staff and managers. This and the absence rent for an office, and savings on workplace equipment, and the ability to avoid wasting time on the road in traffic jams. However, any manager is concerned with the question: how to effectively manage a remote team, set tasks for them and achieve their goals?

During the training, you will learn how to search for ideal candidates for remote work and control their working hours. How to conduct interviews on Skype? How to properly plan remote work? Avoid problems and avoid falling into the trap of ineffective communications?

You will systematize your knowledge about remote control and translate it into practical skills. Get recommendations from an experienced coach about whether you are doing everything right now and whether you need to “work on mistakes” in remote management. You will study the strategy and tactics of remote management, learn ways to motivate staff and control methods.

The main emphasis during the training is on practice and solving real problems faced by the leader of a remote team. Classes are conducted in a mode of intensive interaction between the trainer and participants. Methods of working in groups, brainstorming, and visual materials are used.

After completing the training, you will become an effective remote manager and will be able to make your business even more successful!

Remote management of employees - if previously this was presented as an unlikely and ineffective technique, now, in the light of modern technological advances, it is considered quite real.

Of course, there are certain peculiarities in this issue. The first is staff motivation. Remote communication requires good self-organization from employees. The fact is that even the most highly qualified professional, without “feeling in the back of his head” the warm, friendly gaze of his leader, gradually begins to take a less responsible attitude towards his work.

Conventions and formalities, on which, as a rule, discipline in a team is based, disappear. Here we have to rely on the self-organization of employees. The second feature is that communication via corporate email, Skype or telephone will never replace live communication. So remote management is good for “formalist” bosses who do not really count on great friendship and love from their wards.

In all other respects, remote work is very convenient.

Methods and tools of control and influence

Methods of remote management and control can be very different. Someone records their arrival at work through activity on Skype, ICQ or corporate mail. Meetings can be held in a conference call or webinar format. Today, creating a virtual room and inviting everyone there is a simple and quick thing. A microphone and headphones are enough to quickly hold a “planning meeting” and discuss current tasks. The most interesting thing is that for such purposes you don’t even need to pay for the webinar platform - there are a number of portals that provide “virtual offices” for free use (up to a certain number of participants, say, up to 200 people. But, as a rule, this number is quite enough) .

In another case, Skype is also suitable for group communication.

What must be mandatory is a clearly defined structure of the responsibilities of each employee. Everyone should do their own job. This way you can avoid “duplication” of functions.

Recruitment and training of personnel

It's not that simple when it comes to recruiting staff. Here, a lot depends on the position and, again, on the competence of the employees themselves. In principle, interviews on Skype are no longer surprising – you can get a pretty decent picture by using this format. But! Let's be realistic - personal communication still cannot be replaced.

It all depends on the position that is offered to the candidate. If this is top management, of course, it makes sense to talk with the person in person and get a more complete impression of him. It’s another matter if you need a person whose qualifications can be identified through remote formats. The story of staff training in a remote format is also very interesting. There are both pros and cons here, just like everywhere else. Pros: portals distance learning, teaching materials companies and webinars help to significantly save time and, importantly, money.

Distance learning is significantly cheaper than face-to-face learning. However, firstly, the quality of face-to-face education will always be higher. Secondly, remote learning requires a high level of self-organization from the employee. Thirdly, it is much more difficult to assess how well the student has mastered the material, and especially its practical part.

Of course, a lot here depends not only on the management format, but also on the personality of the student. A similar situation exists with personnel certification. In fact, the evaluation of an employee consists of two qualities: professional and personal. Probably someone will argue and say that personal qualities have nothing to do with it at all, because an employee should be assessed only by professionalism. However, any team is a living organism, and many would prefer nice person with little (yet) work experience, because he can always be trained, rather than a “pro,” say, with delusions of grandeur, who always causes problems.

The main nuance of remote control is precisely this. It is more difficult to evaluate people by their personal qualities, and accordingly, it is more difficult to manage and set up the necessary positive psychological climate in the team. An employee is evaluated purely on the results of his work.

And, of course, it is important to remember that remote management will not have the same effect in terms of creating “team spirit” and group cohesion as the presence of a strong, bright leader in the office.

The remote control format is neither bad nor good. Everything depends on the structure and characteristics of the organization: in what direction it conducts its business, what is the policy of the management, what is the psychological climate in the team and, of course, what are the financial capabilities of the organization. In any case, remote management is another opportunity and another achievement in the development of business and management.

Video

Special platforms also help to carry out remote control. One of these platforms is discussed in this video.

Basecamp's project management system can also be very useful when managing employees remotely. The manager will have the opportunity to monitor the progress of the project, find out how much time employees devote to certain tasks, give instructions and draw up a plan for all project participants.

REMOTE CONTROL AS A NEW DIRECTION OF MANAGEMENT

Avdeeva Natalya Mikhailovna
Tolyatti State University

annotation
The article is devoted to the issue of remote management as new form personnel management. The prerequisites and reasons for the development of the spread of remote forms of employee management are described. The author also presents the undeniable advantages of remote employment for employees and the significant advantages of remote control for the organization. The work provides a certain number of conditions for a company’s transition to remote management in its various forms and provides recommendations for effective remote management of employees.

REMOTE CONTROL MANAGEMENT AS A NEW DIRECTION

Avdeeva Natalia Mikhailovna
Togliatti State University

Abstract
The article focuses on remote management as a new form of personnel management. Describes the background and causes of the spread of the remote form of management staff. The author also shows the undeniable advantages of remote type of employment for employees and a significant plus remote control for the organization. The paper presents a certain number of conditions for the transition of the company on the remote control in a variety of forms and recommendations for effective remote management employees.

Scientific adviser:
Gudkova Svetlana Anatolevna
Tolyatti State University
Ph.D., Associate Professor

Currently, this trend is increasingly being noticed: business is becoming more virtual. Many categories of employees and even entire companies do their work not in the office, but at home or in the fields. But how can you assign a task to an employee without personal contact? How to motivate him to labor activity? How to control the progress of work? How to make a remote employee feel like a member of the team and committed to the company? Today, these and other questions are already answered by specialist theorists and practitioners of remote management.

Contrary to the spread of virtual management, there is a tendency for some companies to move away from remote management. So Hewlett-Packard, once the world's largest manufacturer of personal computers, decided to abandon the practice of using remote work employees and transfer all of its workers to offices. Hewlett-Packard is drowning in colossal losses due to the fact that “remote” employees do not go to meetings, do not participate in brainstorming sessions, and sometimes even spend working time on launching their own startups. Other companies, such as Yahoo, Best Buy and even Google, which has already abolished the notorious “20% rule,” have also begun to tighten corporate discipline.

I would like to note that the manager must be personally mature for remote control. To mature means to begin to trust people. Indeed, with remote personnel management, communications may be lost and some important details may be overlooked. An important point is the recruitment of people with high level professionalism, each in their own industry, so that there are no problems with the fact that at the necessary moment people will simply sit, not making any decisions and doing nothing. In such a situation, there is no way without evaluating and monitoring the activities of subordinates.

Pointing out the need for control and timely setting of tasks, it should be said that it is necessary in a clearly defined period, for example, once a week, to send your recommendations for the process and set tasks for employees for a certain period. You can also require not only a report on the work done, but also photographs - and this should be a regular process.

In practice, there are situations where it is impossible to do without remote management. In this case, it is worth noting some recommendations that should be followed to build effective system remote control in the organization (Figure 1).

Despite some pitfalls, remote control continues to evolve. The most important prerequisites for remote employment are the availability computer equipment And broadband access to the Internet (for transferring large amounts of information) from an employee working outside the office.

There are a number of reasons for the spread of remote management:

⁻ Maximum costs for an employee constantly present in the office;

⁻ A certain type of company activity, which involves the main number of employees working remotely outside the office (for example, a company engaged in software);

⁻ Availability of a highly ramified and regional network;

⁻ The manager may simply be temporarily absent from the company - on a business trip, on vacation, because even on vacation, many executives strive to keep abreast of what is happening at the company.

An important difference between remote employment and other forms of non-standard employment is that workers are remote from the place where the results of their work are needed, or from those workplaces where this work is usually performed. The undeniable advantages of this type of employment for workers and employers are presented in Table 1.

Table 1. Advantages of remote management

Benefits for employees

Advantages for employers

⁻ Ability to distribute working hours at your own discretion; ⁻ Ability to work at home or in other comfortable conditions with the Internet; ⁻ Possibility to choose a job independently; ⁻ Health promotion, as this allows the employee to organize his working time taking into account his own biological rhythm; ⁻ Participation in the labor market of disabled people, persons burdened with obligations, married women and women with children, students and pensioners. ⁻ An opportunity to ease tension in society associated with the poor mobility of the population that exists in Russia due to the inaccessibility of cheap and high-quality housing and high mortgage rates; ⁻Increasing business activity and employment of the population, since labor subjects may actually be located in different regions of Russia; ⁻ Elimination of ineffective and unnecessary constant dependence of the employee on bureaucracy in organizations and the rigidity of managers.

⁻ No office space rental; ⁻ Guarantee of high-quality work because the risk of damage to the work result before it is transferred to the employer lies with the employee; ⁻ No costs for workplace equipment; ⁻ Payment for work only after it is completed (results are received); ⁻ Flexibility in setting your work schedule.

The significant advantages of such remote employment create the prerequisites for the transfer of some employees to this type of work. However, the transition to remote control in its various forms requires the fulfillment of a certain number of conditions, such as:

1. Maximum delegation of one’s own powers and correct identification of the employee responsible for control at the site in the absence of the main manager.
2. Development of specific, measurable, realistic goals for each employee during the period of absence of the manager from the workplace.
3. During remote control, the number of communication channels increases.
4. Any manager must master the technique of conducting video conferences with several employees simultaneously.
5. It is important for a manager to know the features of the written method of communication, which requires specific expression of thoughts and clarification of wording.
6. The practice of setting daily tasks works very effectively, when the manager sends a letter with specific tasks for the day at the same time.
7. Performance evaluation is required.

It should be noted that there are factors inhibiting the development of remote management, despite its undeniable advantages as a new form of employment. The main problem hindering development is the lack of a proper regulatory framework. The solution to the problem of informality is for distance employment to become an established norm and to be correctly positioned from an institutional point of view, especially since the practice of using distance employment in Russia at the micro level has already become widespread.

Thus, to summarize all of the above, it should be noted that distance management is increasingly developing as a popular form of employment. As in other situations, there are some disadvantages and pitfalls in such work, but the growing popularity also tells us about the undeniable advantages of the new trend. The development of IT technologies, computers, availability of network resources, etc. can certainly be considered prerequisites for the development of remote management. However, in this direction this moment absent normative base and there is a certain informality of remote employment due to its looseness as a norm. However, it is the growth of remote employment that will allow us to painlessly go through the transformation of standard forms of employment and social and labor relations.

Many managers, due to the geography of our country, manage employees who are geographically remote from the head office and are located in other cities. In addition, in matrix companies there is often double or “dotted” subordination, and there are also a large number of cross-projects in which employees from different cities, countries and even continents are involved. In this case, the manager does not have access to the main instrument of influence - personal communication, face-to-face communication. In order to achieve high results from employees remotely, we recommend taking a seminar.

Duration: 18 academic / 12 CPD hours (2 days)

The seminar can also be held in a corporate format, and the seminar program can be changed or supplemented at the request of the customer.

Why PwC Academy

• Unique materials developed by PwC experts
• Clear structure and accessible, engaging form of presentation
• Consolidating the acquired knowledge with the help practical tasks, games, business cases, videos
• Creating an atmosphere of interest in classes, involving participants in discussions

Certificates

At the end of the seminar, participants are given a Certificate of participation in the seminar "Managing remote teams" at PricewaterhouseCoopers, as well as, if necessary, a certificate confirming the number of CPD hours.

Main topics of the training

• Features of working with a remote team. How far away are remote employees? Spontaneous communication curve. Specifics of the role of a manager managing employees remotely.
• Factors of team effectiveness according to the Drexler-Sibbett model (Mission, Trust, Goals, Commitment, Implementation, Synergy, Renewal).
• Creating an atmosphere of trust in a virtual team.
• Main channels of remote communications. Selecting technology for remote communication: video conferencing, Skype, webinar, teleconference, chat, forum, online boards, trackers, and other technologies in management remote employees.
• 3 dilemmas of remote interaction between manager and employee:
• loyalty to the central office and loyalty to local colleagues
• control and independence;
• global or local approach;
• Features of remote implementation of basic management functions: setting and discussing tasks, control, feedback, motivation, employee development.
• Planning, setting and discussing tasks with remote employees.
• Remote control over employees. The importance of monitoring the understanding of the task and one’s own responsibility.
• Methods and techniques of current monitoring in a remote format.
• Review technical means, used to monitor the work of remote employees. Adjusting the balance of trust and control.
• Methods feedback, effective when working remotely. Features of providing developmental feedback at a distance.
• Motivating remote employees. Review of the main theories of motivation and their application to remote interaction.
• Features of selecting remote employees. Necessary competencies for an effective remote employee.
• Advantages and disadvantages of conducting interviews in three formats: telephone, Skype, face-to-face meeting.
• Promoting the development of remote employees. Basic principles of developmental leadership. Model 70-20-10 and its use when working with remote employees. Search for developmental actions in daily work.
• What to do when formal authority is not enough? Principles of organizational influence. Creating a map of the parties involved and managing relationships with them.

Schedule and cost