Best Practices for Evaluating
Remote Employees
With the sudden boom in remote working across the country, a lot has changed. This is not only in the habits of individuals but also in terms of how we deal with things as teams. Luckily, the software side of things has kept abreast to help us along.
For these software solutions, the answers are there to be found for all kinds of unique issues. For instance, what is ATS software, if not the key to a range of staff monitoring problems that many industries face?
Yet, there are some challenges to the remote working world that require the human touch from managers. We’ll look at some of these below.
Be Welcoming and Generous
Everyone wants to feel included. It’s basic human nature. So, when you have new people joining your remote team, be aware that they still require this human element even if they’re physically distant.
Additionally, even where there are negative things to discuss with members of your remote staff, you can adjust the tenor to be more generous. Framing problems as future challenges is one such approach. Most people respond well to this method, overall.
Look to Results Above All
One of the major impacts of the remote work revolution is the results-driven ethos. There’s no need for “busy work” anymore since nobody’s peeking into your office. You either get the results, or you don’t.
This is a great boon for management and staff alike. Do whatever you need to do, but make sure the work is done when it’s due. It may take a little time for everyone to get used to it, but it’s very much the best approach.
Team Evaluation
Evaluations used to be all top-down and a tad parochial in the past. Now, it’s something of an irony that companies have begun to use remoteness as a vehicle for unity. Instilling a team ethos even in evaluative terms is a real winner for managers.
Not only can you make far more nuanced and precise judgments this way, but team evaluations give you a far better sense of the overall health of your workplace too. This way, you can see potential issues before they become serious obstacles.
Self-Evaluation
Another potent option for assessing your employee’s progress is to hear what they have to say themselves. If you take the results you’ve already measured, then add the team’s evaluation, you can blend these with a self-evaluation.
In this way, you cover all the bases. You gain a very holistic picture with which to make highly precise and effective judgments. In the end, it’s exactly this kind of detailed certainty that can make your project more effective going forward.
Feedback
Where you find faults, your most useful tool can be feedback. It’s a great way to nip developing problems in the bud so that they don’t metastasize into something more terminal in the future.
Not only is feedback a suitable mechanism for avoiding burgeoning pitfalls, but it’s highly effective in motivational terms too. Where praise and credit are due, you can take the opportunity to lavish it on your staff and encourage them as you do so.
Conclusion
While some aspects of running a team or project have changed significantly, others remain quite similar. Proximity has been a major shift in recent times, yet people are much the same as ever before.
What’s interesting in this regard is how an increase in the spatial distance has made the concept of unity more evident to us. It seems almost as if the remoteness itself has made us think more closely about togetherness.
