One of the biggest obstacles for a distributed workforce is the lack of personal connection, and while there are several ways to build stronger relationships with your team, the effects of the initial disconnect can have a lasting impact on the success of your company.

Here are just a few of the challenges of working remotely, along with ways to address them while you work to build a deeper understanding and commitment from your employees.

Challenge #1: No “Buy In”

In any relationship, it takes a while to get to know and understand the other person. The same is true for the people on your team. Your staff need time to adjust to one another (working styles and preferences, communication styles, etc.), so it can take a while to develop the relationships that will make your company culture thrive. It can also take a while for new team members to understand the mission and inner workings of your company as a whole, which can make it hard for them to “buy in” to what you’re doing at the beginning.

One solution: Have regular accountability calls with the people on your team. Use a service like iMeet to have face-to-face interactions that incorporate live video streaming with voice so that you can start putting faces and voices to names. Have calls every two weeks so that they’re not too demanding time-wise, and stick to a strict agenda and time frame for each call. Start by letting the person know how things have been going for the company overall, and then let the employee share what he or she has accomplished over the last two weeks, as well as what’s on the list to do over the coming two weeks. Make sure to reiterate what the person’s primary focus should be (and why) so that he or she understands how his or her job impacts the company as a whole.

Challenge #2: Clock-Focused Thinking

In almost any working arrangement, it’s easy for employees to focus solely on the clock, instead of on results or the overall vision of the company. Rather than keeping a constant pulse on how a given activity or task relates to the bottom line, employees more commonly monitor how much time it takes to complete, which can lead to a lot of wasted time on trivial tasks that don’t add real value.

One solution: Give employees a single metric to watch that isn’t time-related. Revenue, expenses, leads captured, new clients signed, or website visitors are all metrics that can be influenced up or down based on an employee’s activities, and by tying his or her efforts to one of those numbers, it’s far more likely that he or she will focus on activities that more directly impact it. Be sure to concentrate on that one key metric during your accountability calls, too, so that the person begins to see that that’s how you’re measuring his or her success overall, not by how many hours he or she clocks in a given week.

Challenge #3: Out of Sight, Out of Mind

One thing I’ve experienced within my own business is that, when there’s a lull on the client’s end, I’m tempted to take advantage of the downtime to focus on other areas of my business, making it possible for days or weeks to go by with no contact between myself and the client. This can lead to a breakdown in communication and to lost momentum within a given project, so when working with members of your own team, it’s important to maintain communication, even when things might be going a little more slowly than usual.

One solution: At the start of each day, send a quick email to team members to let them know where you are with things, what you’re waiting for (whether on your end or theirs), and what the next step will be as soon as that “waiting for” item is in hand. This keeps everyone on the same page and connected overall so that there’s no loss in momentum or communication.

In the end, regular communication and feedback helps to ensure that most of these problems are averted and that you and your team remain on the same page and moving forward with the goals and mission of the company.

What problems have you experienced with working remotely, and how did you fix them?

Photo courtesy Flickr user Y0$HIMI

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Viability

Before beginning any remote-work arrangement, you’ll need to ensure that it’s a feasible option for your situation and company. Although there are many cases where employees can get just as much work done (if not more) working virtually as they can in-house, there are certain situations where it might not be a realistic option, such as if your company requires a large amount of direct, in-person contact with customers and colleagues.

Viability of remote working not only applies to the circumstances surrounding the company, but also to the individual employees considering the possibility. You must determine on a case-by-case basis if a person has the discipline and motivation to maintain his or her responsibilities without direct supervision.

Finally, is it viable from a logistical standpoint? Are the resources, tools, and technology available to support this kind of work arrangement? Establish a checklist of all required items for creating a successful remote work situation, such as:

• Computer and equipment needs,
• Internet connectivity needs,
• Software needs,
• Security needs, and
• Communication needs (phone, voice mail, email, fax, IM, etc.).

Performance Expectations

How will a remote working arrangement affect performance expectations? Will it impact how performance is measured, how assignments are distributed, or how deadlines are established and monitored?

Scheduling and Availability

Especially in the early stages of remote working, getting used to new norms of availability and scheduling can be a challenge. Business owners and managers might expect employees to be available during set times, while employees would rather work during times when they’re most productive, which is why it’s important to communicate these expectations clearly from the beginning. Questions to consider include:

• Will employees be expected to come to the office a certain amount of time each week?
• What will be the terms regarding overtime?
• Will the employee be required to track hours worked each day or week?
• Will the employee have vacation and sick time?
• Will employees be required to maintain set “office hours,” where they are available by phone, IM, or email?
• Will employees have a standard response time for communications?
• Will employees be required to attend certain company functions, meetings, or events?

One important consideration is that it’s not always in the best interest of productivity to increase the number of meetings between employees and management staff simply because of a remote working arrangement. Having meetings for the sake of it wastes time that could be spent more productively.

Designated Work Space and Time

Another big consideration with remote working is that the lines between personal time and space and company time and space can quickly blur, so it’s important to establish guidelines before beginning the arrangement:

• Will the employee be permitted to work whenever he or she chooses? For example, is it acceptable for an employee to break work into blocks of time over the course of a week that may not be in line with more traditional work schedules?
• Will the person be expected to have a designated workspace that is separate from the rest of his/her home?
• Will the person be required to have child/dependent care during certain hours?

Expenses

In addition to personal versus company space and time, you also must establish clear lines between personal and company expenses:.

• Who will be responsible for purchasing and maintaining equipment, software and supplies?
• Will the company reimburse the employee for utilities or other expenses associated with conducting business activity at home?

Also, don’t forget to consider taxes and insurance. Both the employer and employee should meet with qualified professionals to understand the implications of a remote working arrangement.

Evaluation and Review

With any remote working situation, it’s a good idea to start with a trial period to see how well the arrangement works for both parties. Also, be sure to set regular performance review to be sure that work continues to be performed at or above expectation.

In the end, a good majority of businesses can support the option of working remotely, but whatever your business, the first step is setting up solid guidelines that keep you and your team on the same page so that you’re productive and profitable.

What guidelines does your company have in place for remote working?

Photo courtesy Flickr user Dominic

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Identify Your Reason for Going Virtual

After becoming a father for the third time, Chris knew he wanted to change things. With his first two children, he was always working, but now, he had the perfect opportunity to become a virtual CEO: he was his own boss, had his own company, and a couple of hundred people working for him. If he was ever going to go virtual, this would be the time to do it.

He says, “I wanted to get to the point where I was focused on more than just my company. I wanted to be focused on my family more. I wanted also to start focusing a little bit more on my other entrepreneurial projects.” The motivations for becoming a virtual CEO vary from person to person, but in his case, Chris says, “I never liked being handcuffed to a desk.”

Before setting out to become a virtual CEO, figure out your motivations.  As Chris explains, “[it] comes down to a passion to want to make it happen. A lot of people like the idea of being out of the office, but when it becomes a reality, they get really antsy about the whole thing and end up coming in the office everyday.” If you’re not clear about why you want to remove yourself from certain roles within your company, it will be a lot harder to succeed.

Create Your Exit Plan

As Chris details, “To be able to get to the point where you can start taking yourself out of the office on a regular basis and [become] more virtual, you really only have to do one thing: delegate. I hired nine people to replace myself in a number of areas across the business, everything from sales and marketing to operations, HR, accounting, training, the whole lot.” It was a year-long process based firmly around specific goals he wanted to achieve and tasks that he knew needed to be outsourced in order to free himself from the day-to-day operations.

Four steps to creating your plan:

1. Set clear and incremental outsourcing goals. “The nine people I hired, I didn’t just hire all at once,” Chris explains, “They were very systematically put in place throughout the course of 2010. That one year-long goal I broke down into twelve monthly goals, so for instance, January I wanted to take myself out of as many email loops as possible. When I eliminated that, overnight, it freed up three hours of my day.”
2. Decide how you will recruit. What you need in the way of virtual support will determine how you recruit. Some tasks and projects are one-time, while others are recurring, and you may prefer hiring a virtual staffing company over several individuals.
3. Hire the right person for the job. It’s unlikely that one person will handle all of your outsourcing needs. “I get emails from people all the time that say, ‘I need a virtual assistant to handle my blog for me, do my SEO, handle my flight itineraries, and do my graphic design.’ This is four people we’re talking about here,” he explains, and “the first problem entrepreneurs make is that they expect that one virtual assistant can do everything.”
4. Spend enough time training new recruits. Another common mistake, Chris adds, “A lot of people look at outsourcing as a magic pill. They expect it to work perfectly from day one.” Plan to spend enough time training new members of your virtual team on how you like certain tasks done, making sure to be very clear and direct with instructions and feedback.

Develop Trust and Avoid Micro-Managing

When you’re first getting started with your virtual team, or even with an individual new hire, it can be challenging to establish the trust that important tasks will be completed. Chris adds, “It’s hard to be able to just turn around and trust [a new hire] and expect them to get on with the work.”

In the beginning, it may be helpful to closely monitor the work of a new hire. Chris recommends using tools like Hive Desk, which “allows you to keep a tab on what people are doing. They have to clock in and out, just like they would in a regular office environment, and it takes screenshots of their computer every ten minutes,” which can give you a bit more confidence from the start.

It’s important, he adds, not to micro-manage. After the initial few months of working with someone, you should have a pretty good idea whether or not they are going to make a productive addition to your team and if you can trust in their abilities so that you can provide them with the autonomy they expect as virtual workers. “Something like Hive Desk is great to begin with,” he says, “but once that rapport and relationship is starting to be built, you should be able to take your eyes off the ball a bit and just make sure they do what they’re being paid to do.”

What tips do you have for getting started with a virtual team?

Photo courtesy Flickr user Steve Keys

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