Working from home provides employees with a multitude of benefits including providing a better work-life balance, and it can result in higher productivity. Employees can enjoy not having a commute to work and being able to customize their home workspace however they want. One challenge some business owners face is managing virtual employees for a variety of reasons. There are steps you can take to make managing your team easier.
Find the Best Recruitment Services
When you are in the process of hiring new workers for your team, you want to start with the best recruitment services. It can be a hassle finding the right candidates for your open roles, and recruitment services can take the stress out of the entire process. There are numerous benefits, including giving you access to the most talented candidates, saving time and money, can reduce employee turnover, and the open jobs are usually filled much quicker.
It’s a good idea to do research before selecting just any recruitment agency because you want to make sure they work with your needs. Make sure to explain exactly what you’re looking for in an agency as well as your goals. Establish a timeline by which you need the roles filled. You also want to set a budget for using an agency and make sure the services fit within that budget.
Delegate Tasks Appropriately
It can be stressful as a virtual worker when you feel like your workload is neverending. One way to manage your virtual team and help your team feel less stressed is by delegating the tasks appropriately. You don’t want to overload your workers because this will result in resentment and burnout. Make an effort to keep the mood light, encourage laughter, and recommend self-care tips to reduce stress.
Some practices that can help you delegate appropriately include properly identifying work to delegate and clarifying priorities. You also want to take time to understand the strengths and weaknesses of your team members to ensure they’re set up to achieve the goals you set for them.
Offer Plenty of Training Opportunities
One thing that can cause stress to employees is a lack of training. Your employees are an important part of your business and should be equipped with all the skills necessary to complete their tasks with ease. Most employees receive training when they first start the job, but they should also be able to benefit from ongoing training from time to time.
Busy schedules can make it hard to find time for training. Microlearning training opportunities can be a good compromise to help keep skills sharp and offer new skills in a short time frame, such as three to five minutes.
Set Very Clear Expectations
One of the most important ways to manage a team is to set very clear expectations. Make sure these expectations are realistic and try to use the SMART goal framework to keep things simple. If you set goals that are not reasonable, your employees will end up feeling stressed and have poor work performance.
It’s important to document expectations as well as the conversation you had regarding those expectations. Make the effort to review performance regularly and have performance conversations whenever needed to get employees on the right track.
Improve Team Communication
It can be frustrating for any employee, virtual or not, if there is a lack of communication in the workplace. When everyone is completely virtual, the need for regular communication increases because you’re not together in one place. Provide ways to keep in contact with your team daily, even if it’s a quick check-in to see how everyone is doing. It can be helpful to hold regular virtual meetings, whether on video or not, to get everyone together to relay important information or just to help keep morale high.
Having a team of virtual workers can be something that benefits your business in many ways. The key is to offer the proper support to your team and make sure they’re set up for success.
