Managing Telecommuters Effectively

Managing telecommuters can be considered a challenge. It’s hard to determine what approach will work for everyone. For example, just because everything's OK with Mary it might not be working for John. What can you do? The first step is to set an organizational structure. Telecommuters need to be monitored in order to be kept accountable. That means, as a manager, you have to enlist a monitoring system… the telephone time card system is perfect for this job.

Properly monitoring your telecommuters may or may not be the aspect that makes your situation “work”…. Whatever "working" means to you (and you will know your personal definition of “working” long before you ever take on telecommuters), you will have to determine what you plan to you do if there comes a point when it isn't working any longer. How will you know? When will you know? What will you do? If you’re wondering where to turn, phone time cards may just be the ticket.

A strong manager looks for a trend. If you’re setting the standard, then you determine the job and delegate what the trend should b for that job. If letting your telecommuters work on the honor system for a week or a month starts a negative trend and you can determine that "it isn't working," you should take action immediately.

Enlist a monitoring system, ask questions and explore what might be going on with individual employees. If after a period of time, you have determined your needs, and communicated your expectations, it still isn't working, action needs to be taken. Action needs to be based on the guidelines of the job description, i.e., put them on a performance improvement plan and use the telephone monitoring system as an accountability tool.

Management is tough enough without having to worry about whether people are pulling their weight on the job. If you set into motion iron clad tools to make sure your employees are doing what they ought to be doing – you’ll save yourself time, trouble, and, over the long run, a truckload of money.