April 30, 2021 | Posted By: EMC

Tips to achieve the best performance from your remotely working employees

 

Due to the current pandemic situation, the companies are allowing their employees to work from home.  This new system ensures the safety of the employees, improves job satisfaction, and reduces the cost of operations to a certain extent.  Employees also save their time spent commuting to and from the office.  Overall, the system is excellent but unlike other changes, this too has certain teething problems.  In this system, it becomes very difficult to supervise and maintain control over the process and finally results in delays, substandard quality, and dried up cash-flows.

Being a business consultant, many businessmen contact me to get rid of this problem and I always suggest them the following solutions.  In fact, these remedies are very simple and easy to implement.  Only you need to have systems orientation, perseverance, and a positive approach.  Please remember that each change comes with resistance and various difficulties but don’t get demotivated.  Don’t leave your mission till you win.  Now, let’s see these solutions directly.

Segregate the work: Segregate all your activities into two categories; first, ‘work can be performed remotely’ and second, ‘work can’t be performed remotely’.  Only the employees falling in the first category can be allowed to work from home whereas the second category can’t be allowed.

Understand the family situation: Once the segregation is done, ensure that, the employee is having sufficient space to work at home.  Smaller or crowded houses may hinder the performance.  If possible, ask the employees to reserve a dedicated workplace at home.  Also, check the availability of internet connectivity before allowing someone to work from home.

Define the objectives: Once the remotely working group is finalized, besides safety, list down what you need and set priorities.  Define the SMART (Specific-Measurable-Achievable-Realistic-Timebound) objectives.  For example, by closing down the office, we shall reduce the cost of rent, energy, other incidental expenses, and fixed costs to the extent of Rs — per month.  Be specific while defining these figures, including the investment required and also the pay-back period.  Till you achieve the targets, do not compromise on any target/objective.

Provide technology and other resources: On finalizing the list of employees and objectives, provide them with necessary technology resources like a laptop, mobile, internet, etc.

Train the employees: Train your employees on technology, company policy, and emotional stability.  Your policies, rules, and regulations (especially about confidentiality, proprietary information, company property, etc) should be crystal clear.  They should also be trained on how to balance their work and personal life.  This will make them ready to adapt to the changing environment. 

Trust: Trust your employees and empower them to take decisions.  Remember that all have joined your company to add value to the business.  Sometimes they fail due to certain reasons.  Understand the reasons behind their failures and support them to fix the problems.

Promote online culture: With this change, The culture of the office is going to change from offline to online.  The employees need to be trained to perform better by adapting to the new situation.  Whenever necessary, let them use social media for interacting with colleagues.  Let them enjoy the virtual office culture.

Set performance targets and review mechanism:  The management has to document individual SMART KRA/KPIs and establish a daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, and yearly performance review mechanism for each of their activity.  To give you an example, set the rule of three-ring answer for a mobile call during office hours (exclude pre-defined break timings).  If the person doesn’t answer within three rings, straightway deduct pre-defined performance points.  Do not encourage debate on it.  Similarly set other targets, points on achievement, and publish incentives, increments, promotions, etc. based on collecting those points.  Each time record the points and convey the score to the individual.

Regular contact: Call each individual once a day.  Keeping them in isolation may be harmful and can decrease performance.

Treat them as partners in your business: Presently employees don’t work under pressure as they have got ample opportunities in the outer world.  So, it’s better to treat them as partners without compromising on company objectives and values.  Receive their suggestions or complaints and give them feedback.  Be completely professional.  For work hours, be flexible without compromising on performance.

Use meeting time judiciously: When necessary, arrange the meetings by keeping the end result in mind.  Each meeting should have a pre-defined agenda and time.  Except for emergencies, no meeting should be called on short notice.  Each participant should attend well prepared and the meeting should not take excess time than pre-defined.  Keep in mind that your time is valuable.

Zero Paper Office: Use cloud space effectively and make your office paperless.  This will give you the speed of operations. 

In short, working from home is rewarding.  You can reap its benefits with proper planning, organizing, and controlling.  I am sure, you will be able to get the best out of your employees even after allowing them to work from home.

For any clarification or support contact me on my mobile number 7977906847 or write to effmancon@gmail.com.

Gajanan Parab

News: Renault agrees deal with unions on remote working.