Remote Working - How to Make it Work

Remote working can be a scary experience for both employers and employees. For employees it has the potential to be a lonely existence with little contact from real people on a face 2 face level. Managers struggle to understand how to manage a remote and geographically dispersed team.  However with the correct technology, the right skills and attitude it is a fantastic way to deliver the business objectives whilst at the same time creating a flexible organisation, which also delivers against the green  revolution, improves employee satisfaction and reduces reliance on expensive new office space and overbearing IT infrastructure. 
A very large number of organsiations now use remote working ranging from large corporate account management & Project management teams, lone contractors, helpdesks and many others to numerous to mention. There are many strong business reasons for seriously considering remote working as a viable option including reorganisation, reducing office space, putting staff nearer to their customers and of course to create a disaster recovery plan in the event of a flu pandemic.
On top of ensuring that you have the best technology to deliver a remote working policy it is as important to ensure that you develop a structured approach to managing communications. Margaret Burnside, Director at the centre for People Development has suggested some simple guiding principles for successful remote working.

Remote Working Checklist

1. Hold an initial face-to-face start up meeting
2. Have periodic face2face meetings
3. Establish a code of conduct or set of norms - and as the leader ensure they are adhered to
4. Chair conference calls carefully, allowing time to discuss audio quality and any problems with it
5. Use the reply all function appropriately on emails so that other team members can follow the whole conversation
6. Ensure all team members schedules are visible - ensure the tools exist to show when people are on holiday, at conferences etc
7. Creat a "water cooler" equivalent on a shared access site for social chit chat on non work topics - encourage this - send the message that social chat is ok just as it is in the office
8. Don't just visit the remote sites when there is a problem
9. Watch out for little thingd that can leave people feeling isolated - avoid "out of sight out of mind" syndrome
10. Review how well the team is working - use a conference call or face2face meeting solely to discuss team effectiveness encourage feedback on your leadership