05/ 25/ 2007
by Jeffrey Moses
There's a wealth of information in books and on the Internet about techniques of managing telecommuting employees. Topics not often considered, however, are how to keep telecommuting employees motivated and feeling that they are part of the company team.
Toward this end, telecommuting employees should:
- Be made to feel that they are part of the company, not working for themselves in a distant or "loose" connection with the company's operations and goals.
- Understand that their work is under direct guidance of management, and that they are not working in a vacuum.
- Remain on a career path within the company so they do not consider their work a dead end without potential salary growth and/or promotion potential.
It's easy for telecommuters to feel that they are working on their own. In fact, many begin to feel after a month or two that they are more like independent contractors, touching base with the company only when necessary or required.
Management must realize this possibility from the beginning and take steps to help telecommuting employees realize that their responsibilities are just as important to the success of the company as those of in-house workers. Telecommuters should be included whenever possible in all company meetings by phone or video conference. Their activities and achievements should be noted along with those of other employees in newsletters and company-wide e-mails—and they should be part of employee recognition and reward programs.
It's surprising how frequently management allows key telecommuters to drift along on their own for long periods. From the inception of telecommuting programs, managers should bring their long-distance workers into the group and do everything possible to maintain the feeling that they are an indispensable part.
Managers and supervisors also need to work directly with telecommuting employees, establishing ultimate goals, schedules, benchmarks for evaluation during projects, deadlines and performance criteria from the start. Included should be:
- Establishing channels of communication between telecommuting employees and management as well as with other in-house employees for information sharing.
- Setting up schedules for reporting by conference call or e-mail.
- Establishing performance guidelines to assure regular evaluations of job performance.
Telecommuting employees tend to become so involved in their projects that they lose perspective of the potential for career advancement. It's management's responsibility to make sure all eligible employees are included in discussions of promotion and career advancement. When employees lose touch with the opportunities presented by their developing experience and skills, they tend to feel isolated from the company's goals and achievements and are more likely to look elsewhere to use their growing abilities.
