So why not force return to office? There’s clearly benefits to the traditional model, right? Well, it should be obvious at this point there’s a great many benefits for remote work and hybrid options – at least for roles where it’s possible – for both employees and employers. (See Remote Work Statistics & Trends.) Potentially reduced costs on both sides, better work/life balance for employees, wider range of talent selection, etc. (However, note that cost reduction might be less than originally thought; stipends for remote gear, travel costs for team meetings that might not otherwise have been necessary, etc. So cost issues will as always be highly situational.)

There may also be an issue that you may lose or not be able to get desired talent because they won’t commute to your location. So how do you manage a remote or partly remote workforce if you’re still challenged in doing so? Even after the COVID lockdowns and remote work scramble, it seems some companies are still struggling managing this. As a senior manager who’s worked remotely or hybrid for years, (long before COVID), and managed remote teams globally, I wanted to share some of my research on this.

One somewhat negative idea should be considered as well. If you have challenges with remote workforce management, you might not have so much a tactical issue with remote management as you do a general personnel problem. If the only way you think you can get colleagues to behave appropriately is if you can watch them up close, you perhaps have some challenges with core motivational imperatives. If you’re reasoning for needing more in person time is related to more positive values of relationship building and team effectiveness, great. But if it’s due to the more negative concerns, again, I’d suggest you consider thinking more about your team members as opposed to their work venue.

Remote Management Foundations

Managing remote team members requires a strategic approach that focuses on clear communication, robust organizational practices, and leveraging technology. Here are some best practices to help you build a strong foundation for managing your remote team effectively.

Expectations

Your methods for expectation setting should already have existed regardless of office vs. remote. Though one difference might be remote work can amplify challenges you didn’t know you already had. One challenge – remote or in person – is that motion does not necessarily equal progress. There’s a difference between being a feature factory and knocking out some work artifacts, vs. effective outcomes. And if you’re not already managing to those outcomes, how are you going to achieve them?

It’s always been true that goals and responsibilities should be clear. However, things can become of greater concern when there’s a sense of less visibility, especially from the employee’s perspective. This doesn’t have to be the case. Sometimes performance plans and goal setting is done as a checkbox exercise. That’s never a great thing. And when working at a distance, it’s potentially worse. Since there will be more autonomy, you’re going to have to be sure you’ve got solid clarity and shared understanding.

Communication

Communication is – generally – most likely better when in person. Not necessarily, but generally. Go into just about any medium-to-large size corporation’s office floor. Wander around. You will see people getting up to chat. But many still text even just cubes away. Regardless, there are values to in-person communication. (And we do have research here: see Face-to-Face Communication; Psychology Today.) Even with great web cameras, audio, and such, there are non-verbal cues that are easily missed; body language, eye contact, etc. As well, there’s an emotional aspect. Some studies show mental health may fare better via face-to-face communication. (See The value of face-to-face communication in the digital world, and Face-To-Face Social Interactions Can Reduce Anxiety, Depression.)

Given that there are some known issues with remote here, we need to do what we can for a net positive gain. The following points may be obvious enough, but we’ll run the list in case one may be new for you.

Communication Tools & Guidelines

• Use quality tools; offer stipends for home gear if necessary so people have quality equipment.
• Provide guidelines and training for how to interact via computer mediated interaction.
• Set standards for regular check-ins, when there should be one-on-one and team meetings.
• Set expectations for how to use video vs. simple text messaging; or more broadly, which tools/channels to use for different type of communications.
• Buy professional versions of your tools; whether for video, or others for collaboration.
• You likely already have collaboration tools. From file sharing to project management tools, be sure everyone has access and is trained. Team structures for information sharing should be clear. If internal folders, wikis, look like your kitchen junk drawer, get that sorted out.
• Allow informal channel spaces. Whether company fostered chat spaces with some scheduled games and contests or casual topic channels, offer space to connect in a more casual way.

Work Environments

• Consider stipends for home office gear. You’re likely providing a laptop, but large screen monitors, high quality webcams and microphones are useful upgrades.
• Consider Remote Office allowance. If your employee wants or needs to just get out of the house, consider an allowance for a remote co-working space on occasion.
• Encourage occasional breaks. One management concern has been employees might be slacking when working remotely. However, it can be the other way around. In order to demonstrate they’re working, some may overdo time in the chair. (See You’re Right! You Are Working Longer and Attending More Meetings, and Surprising Remote Work Burnout Statistics in 2024.)

Managers

• Goal settings and outcomes. Make even more sure than you otherwise might have that these are clear at all levels; company, team, personal.
• Make clear when you expect people to be available. But don’t get overly suspicious if there’s a delay reaching someone. Even office workers get up to go to the bathroom or get lunch.
• Make clear how you can be contacted yourself. When are you available? What are preferred means of contact? Make sure people have your cell phone if you might be challenging to get hold of.
• Resolve issues as early as practical via video or voice. Don’t let key issues decay.
• Get feedback. Get feedback from team members on how they’re doing remotely. Especially newer employees. Schedule specific sessions for feedback. While you’re at it, get feedback from them on how you’re doing. Are you supporting them in ways that they believe they can be successful?
• Give feedback more than you otherwise might. And have any more challenging conversations earlier than you otherwise might.
• Be empathetic. Managers are on the hook for performance more so than their team members. We work through our team members. When an employee is off sick for a few days, we may sympathize, but we also know the marketplace doesn’t care, and our CEO is going to ask us, “why is this number not where it’s supposed to be?” Nevertheless, our long term success depends on the performance, (and therefore well-being), of our teams. If someone needs to see the dentist, and they want to go at lunch, don’t force them to take a whole 1/2 day PTO to do that. If someone needs to be a little late in the AM or leave early in the PM because they’re the ones that have to drop off / pick up kid(s) at the bus stop, is that really a big deal? No one should be abusing the privilege, but you’ll be able to tell if that’s the case and have that conversation if necessary. The rest of the time, be sensible about your team members’ well-being.
• Know your team. This is part of the former point. We’re past HR at this point. That is, during the interview process, there’s things you can’t an shouldn’t ask. You maybe didn’t learn that the person has several kids. Or just got divorced. Or has a sick parent. Or whatever. But you should – without being invasive or violating their desire to keep things private – try to understand their issues and needs. Your overarching goal is to deliver your products, whatever those are. And you’re doing that through your people. Get to know them. You don’t need to try to be their best friend; this is work after all. But a collegial team attitude takes more than just an economic relationship.

About Remote Monitoring

I’ll give you the basics on this in a moment. But first I’m going to inject a personal opinion. I think that in most cases of creative class work if you’re monitoring or get caught monitoring at a detailed level, you’re going to suffer for it. The erosion of any trust relationship will be fast. And your turnover could follow shortly after. That being said, remote monitoring is apparently on the rise for a variety of reasons.

Consider use of the right kind(s) of remote tracking tools if you must. There are tools that help keep tabs on productivity, without necessarily being invasive. There may be work that legitimately requires keystroke logging and such. But this level of intrusiveness is probably going to be perceived as a violation of privacy, even if about work. If you must, be transparent about how and why this is being done. Micromanaging to this level could result in stress and anxiety with negative impact on morale and the productivity you were seeking to improve. Nevertheless, some industries with compliance needs may have no options. So be transparent as to what you might be doing here or you could suffer for it; and this is true whether employees are remote or in the office. (See The Negative Effects of Employee Monitoring, Internet Surveillance in the Workplace, Is Electronic Monitoring Hurting Employees’ Mental Health?, Watching you, watching me.)

Again, there may be some types of work where monitoring is appropriate or necessary. Just remember that we often get what we incentivize. You might be tracking keystrokes, but is that really any kind of outcome you need? Maybe it is. What if it’s creative quality? Do you think the employee under stress to be typing or moving their mouse is going to give you the best work? Do you think they’re going to be happily showing up early or staying late while being tracked? Or will they want to get out as soon as the whistle blows? Your effort to curtail bad behavior may cause more. As mentioned, it might be best to focus on outcomes, not output in any case. Whatever your choice, you need to tread carefully here.

Managing Time Zones & Offshoring

One obvious benefit of remote work is you can hire anywhere in the world. There are operational challenges to this in terms of Human Resources/Legal obligations, possibly state or country regulations regarding work rules, hiring/separation, salary remittance, and so on. But those topics are out of scope here. Assuming you’ve already navigated that, we’re focused here on managing workflows.

Take advantage of time zone differences for round-the-clock productivity. This might not apply to you, however could be beneficial. From an operations perspective, there’s little worse than work-in-progress delays due to dependencies. If you can find ways to use time zones to eliminate these, (unlikely), or mitigate them greatly, (more likely), you can accrue benefits in terms of overall throughput.

It’s likely that at some points, some team members will have to be asked to work at what for them might be off hours. Within a few times zones, this might not be that challenging, however beyond that can clearly be more of an issue. And how much this needs to occur depends on how much overlap you need for that work which is truly collaborative. Having some employees not overlapping in work schedules can be useful for the heads down work. Some companies try to have “Meetingless Tuesdays” or similar to block time for folks to get project work done. What often happens though, is others see that time as where they have a higher degree of confidence their colleagues are free. So they might think this is a great time to schedule meetings then! Take some care with this.

The trick here is to enforce overlap where necessary, and try to get throughput for work that would otherwise block others. Project management tools will not solve dysfunctional team problems. And there will always be items that require clarification. Still, even in Agile environments where teams work together to define issues, there’s points where work gets “thrown over the fence” to others. Getting this sorted out becomes a superpower.

Additional Tools & Considerations

Provide Support and Resources:

• Offer training on remote work tools and best practices.
• Make time for “water cooler” chat.

Encourage Professional Development:

• Offer opportunities for skill development and career growth through online courses, webinars, and workshops.
• Support continuous learning to keep your team engaged and motivated.

Bottom Line

Remote and hybrid work is here to stay for a wide variety of so-called “creative class” or knowledge worker jobs. There are major benefits as well as risks for both employer and employee. The math is simple: Done well it’s a competitive advantage for top and bottom line. Done poorly, it’s not. Forced Return to Office Policies may very well be especially detrimental to talent retention; though we may have to wait awhile longer for definitive research on this. In any case, you have to sort it out. Because every job spec you put out there is going to have this issue as a filter for some significant group of potential candidates.