By: Anne

Anne — Fri, 22 Jul 2011 03:01:55 +0000

Managing people remotely is definitely a different game. I taught teenagers remotely for a year (I think it’s the same as managing people), and actually the easiest part is knowing if they’re doing their work or not, because you receive the work on the assigned due date or you don’t. The hardest part was clearly communicating what they needed to do and how to do it. I found it very easy to assume students were being lazy when oftentimes there were legitimate reasons for their not getting work done. For example, a link might be broken, or it takes them 15 minutes to find the link that you thought was so obvious. They had a fire drill and lost 20 minutes of class, or they never received the multimedia CD that was required for the course. Furthermore teenagers don’t like to ask adults for help, and when you’re remote, you can’t see what they’re getting stuck on. It’s not like you lose control when you’re remote, because you still have the same level of responsibility, it’s more like you have to control in a different way–through supporting, advising, and creating a clear work frame. Here’s an article on remote manager characteristics http://vsee.com/blog/?p=1946

By: JoeUBlow

JoeUBlow — Fri, 22 Jul 2011 02:15:13 +0000

I would really like to see a second article that intelligently ties the use of social media leaders like Facebook or Twitter with resourcing a remote workforce. Do the authors really think that a resource should be allowed to use an open tool like FB/Twitter or other to collaboratively work with peers at a company?

Comments on: Study: Yup, managers do need web work boot camp

By: Anne

By: JoeUBlow