How to succeed with distance management

Even though teleworking was already an integral part of many companies before Corona, the Corona crisis has nevertheless helped to push the establishment of home offices and teleworking in most companies. During the lockdown of Denmark in the spring, home offices were put to the test, and for many companies, it exceeded all expectations.

With the government's new restrictions, many companies are once again forced to send employees to work from home, and while some have seen the benefits of remote working, there are still some companies that see remote working and virtual collaboration as a stopgap solution. This may be due to the fact that remote working places high demands on employees, but especially on management.

Remote work puts new demands on remote management

Remote work requires remote management, and as many discovered in the spring, there can be many challenges associated with remote management. Remote management places new and greater demands on management in terms of collaboration, sparring, communication, employee well-being and coordination of work tasks. Below we give you some tips on what you can do to succeed with remote management.

Stay on top of technology

One of the decisive factors for successful remote working and remote management is that the technology to be used is in place. This applies to virtual communication, where you need to ensure that both audio and video work when virtual meetings are held. As a manager, you also need to ensure that employees have access to all the necessary systems that allow them to work from home.

Remember good communication

When managing remotely, it's important to set expectations with employees about how much communication will take place when they are sent back to their home office. As a manager, it's up to you to take the lead and decide how virtual communication should take place and how often.

Since virtual communication is different from face-to-face communication, it's also important to pay attention to tone of voice and language in phone calls and emails to maintain good communication despite the distance.

Pay attention to social and well-being

A major challenge of remote management and remote working is the loss of social contact in the office. To prevent the lack of social interaction in the office from affecting employee wellbeing, it's a good idea to regularly monitor whether employees are happy working remotely. In addition, as a manager, you should cultivate social and community by holding video meetings and communicating with employees through virtual forms of communication more often than you might otherwise do.

Follow up on work tasks

Telecommuting can often make it difficult to coordinate tasks on a daily basis. Therefore, it's important that you as a manager regularly follow up on tasks and results. You can do this by holding short meetings or by following up on employees' tasks and results through status reporting.

Get help in the HR department

If you're a larger company with multiple departments, remote working can present even greater challenges in terms of collaboration and task coordination. This is where it can be a good idea to enlist the help of your HR department.

The HR department usually has a greater overview of employees, their skills and areas of work. If you as a manager need an employee to perform a specific task, the HR department can often help you find a qualified employee to do the job - regardless of which department the employee works in.

Therefore, it's a good idea to collaborate and stay in close contact with your HR department when working remotely. This way, you save a lot of time and resources on finding the right employee and can focus on managing employees remotely.

Get a better overview of your employees with an HR system

An HR system can also be particularly beneficial for remote working and remote management. In the HR system's employee database, you can find information about all employees in the company. Among other things, you can get an overview of employees' work areas, skills and education, which can make it easier for you to find the right employee for a specific task.

At HRM-Nordic, our HR system can help your company create an overview of your employees and plan and delegate tasks to employees at the home office. Our HR system can also be used in connection with recruitment and follow-up on well-being, courses and the like.

Finally, our HR system can also be used for onboarding new employees, which can help you keep track of the onboarding process and ensure that the new employee has a smooth start-up process - even when all employees are sent back to the home office.

If you're interested in learning more about how we can help your company succeed with remote management by setting up an HR system, please call us on 70 26 32 25 or contact us via email to info@hrsolutions.dk.