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Casual Articles - The Art of Virtual Leadership - 4 Keys to Leading Remote Workers and Managing Virtual Teams
If you are ready to take your fund raising to the next level you will want to pay close attention to this very unique fund raising idea. Gone are the days of collecting pop cans and selling magazine subscriptions. It is time to move to a new height with a very unique fund raising idea. This article will put you on track to do just that.The unique fund raising idea you are about to learn includes part craft, part creative, and part crazy. Now, I’m sure you will agree that anything that has those three elements is worth investigating.The first element of this unique fund raising idea will involve rocks. Yes, you read that correctly. You will want to gather up several rocks that are the size of a coffee cup down to the size of a regular US quarter. Next the fun begins…The next element of this unique fund raising idea will involve some wax, glue, and crayons. You can find these types of products at any craft store or many other stores. You might be able to find cheap crayons at a dollar store since they will be ruined a
For times when face-to-face communication is preferable or necessary, schedule meetings when mobile workers and virtual team members will be in the office. A simple approach is to schedule consistent meetings such as a staff meeting the 2nd Tuesday of every month or a team meeting every Friday. This type of regularity makes meetings easier to plan around.
FEEDBACK AND SUPPORT An important but basic management technique that is often neglected is giving employees ongoing feedback and support. Many employees - at all organizational levels - feel they don't get enough feedback from managers on their performance. This type of ongoing discussion takes on heightened importance with virtual teams.
Regular meetings should be scheduled between managers and remote workers to assess needs, give feedback, and discuss problems. These are excellent opportunities to agree upon the scope of work to be done, timelines, and deadlines.
Another important way to improve the relationship with remote or mobile workers is to be
Why Use Resume ObjectivesBefore we can discuss the pitfalls you first need to understand the reasons for including your resume objectives and how they relate to your resume and interview selection process.Including an objectives section at the beginning of your resume provides a brief introduction to the purpose of the resume, highlighting your career objectives and the type of job you are seeking.It is very common for job-seekers to include a brief objectives section at the beginning of their resume The objectives section can be an important part of a resume, and might be the first thing employers looks at. Therefore you should put considerable thought into constructing focused and clear objectives.Look At These Resume Objective ExamplesA resume objective does exactly what the name suggests; it highlights your objectives and states the type of job you are seeking.Here are some examples of career objectives:· To obtain an elementary education teaching position with upward mob
Remote management is not radically different from managing people on-site. The biggest difference is a shift in management style from "eyeball management" (assuming workers are being productive because you physically see them at their desks working) to managing by results.
By learning to mange by results rather than activity, improving communication, and nurturing trust between managers and employees the whole organization benefits. In fact, virtual team managers have reported that their overall management skills increased for both on and off-site workers.
There are 4 main keys to leading remote employees. These tips for distance management will help you work more successfully with your mobile workers and virtual teams.
Basics of managing remote or mobile workers
- Managing by results, not activity
- Improving communication to stay connected
- Handling meetings and schedules
- Feedback and support
MANAGING BY RESULTS, NOT ACTIVITY One of the most common fears that managers and executives have when considering virtual teams is, "How do I know my employees will be working if I'm not there to watch them?" Well the simple answer is that you won't, not every minute. But realistically, you can't be sure they are really working every minute you see them in the office either; it is easy to confuse activity with productivity.
A manager's job is to provide specific, measurable, and attainable goals for the remote employee so that he or she knows what must be done and when. These can include reports completed, number of calls made, and number of support issues resolved - or any other appropriate measure of job productivity.
It is important that the employee and manager arrive upon a shared definition of the deliverables and timetable together. This ensures that everyone is on the "same page" and prevents miscommunication. It also ensures that the goals and expectations are realistic.
A manager's value to an organization is as more of a coach and mentor, not an overseer. This move away from "eyeball management," and the resulting clearer definition of employee job responsibilities, is one of the major contributing factors to the improved productivity normally experienced with virtual teams.
Shifting your focus to performance based management will help you build a more productive mobile workforce.
IMPROVING COMMUNICATION (STAYING CONNECTED) Effective communication is one of the most important elements to ensuring a successful virtual team. This is one area of remote work that technology helps make very easy. A variety of tools are available that allow employees to stay in touch and collaborate.
The most obvious way to promote ease of communication with remote workers is to have defined working hours. By clearly setting hours employees need to be available, you can circumvent a common point of confusion and ensure timely communication. Recognize, however, that there is a balance between being in touch and being pestered. This balance must be developed over time.
When remote workers are not immediately available, or communication is not taking place in ‘real time', another area that can cause challenges is the timeliness of communication. Managers and on-site coworkers are often concerned with not being able to get in touch with remote workers when needed.
An easy, but often overlooked, solution to this problem is to create a set schedule for checking and responding to voice messages and e-mail. This can be hourly, twice a day, or whatever is appropriate for your situation. This schedule, along with an expected response time, allows everyone to rest assured that their messages will be received and a response is forthcoming.
There are also a variety of practices managers can implement that assist remote employees to stay "connected" and still feel like part of the gang at the office. These include having regularly scheduled phone calls, including virtual team members in impromptu lunches and other social events, and routing more informal information, memos, and FYI items to them.
HANDLING MEETINGS AND SCHEDULES Meetings serve a variety of crucial purposes for any organization or team project including sharing information, keeping up to date on developments, making decisions, reporting on progress, brainstorming, and exploring ideas, plans, and alternatives.
Keeping track of everyone's schedule and including remote workers in meetings can appear daunting to an organization investigating virtual teamwork. By being creative with time management and using technology and tools properly, these can become non-issues.
There are web-based groupware and virtual office platforms as well as dedicated software solutions available that manage group schedules and shared calendars. These allow both on and off-site employees to access current schedules and up-to-date information on last minute scheduling changes.
An important realization is that not all meetings need to be face-to-face. If you use technology properly, remote workers can use a combination of teleconferencing, videoconferencing, web conferencing, and groupware to participate in meetings and attend presentations in real time without the additional cost or time requirement to travel. These tools also allow you to include remote workers in important ad hoc meetings that arise.
For times when face-to-face communication is preferable or necessary, schedule meetings when mobile workers and virtual team members will be in the office. A simple approach is to schedule consistent meetings such as a staff meeting the 2nd Tuesday of every month or a team meeting every Friday. This type of regularity makes meetings easier to plan around.
FEEDBACK AND SUPPORT An important but basic management technique that is often neglected is giving employees ongoing feedback and support. Many employees - at all organizational levels - feel they don't get enough feedback from managers on their performance. This type of ongoing discussion takes on heightened importance with virtual teams.
Regular meetings should be scheduled between managers and remote workers to assess needs, give feedback, and discuss problems. These are excellent opportunities to agree upon the scope of work to be done, timelines, and deadlines.
Another important way to improve the relationship with remote or mobile workers is to be s
A new concept that has recently surfaced in the wonderful world of online marketing is the purchase of buying pixels. Web entrepreneurs are buying up pixels on high traffic web pages and are placing click through banner ads which link to their own sites. Is this new trend effective? The short term answer could be leaning towards yes. Web entrepreneurs with pixel ads are seeing their unique number of web visitors go through the roof. Especially the ones who get their banner present on a site early so they can reap the rewards of traffic received from "buzz attention" Some web entrepreneurs are reported to be receiving thousands of unique visitors per day from a simple pixel add.How did the trend start?A kid by the name of Alex Tew revolutionized the idea of selling off pixels. Alex, a 21 year old from Wiltshire England came up with the idea in an effort to raise $1 million dollars to pay for his university education. Those must be expensive classes at a $1 million price tag! In all fairness, Alex set an enormous goal.
A manager's job is to provide specific, measurable, and attainable goals for the remote employee so that he or she knows what must be done and when. These can include reports completed, number of calls made, and number of support issues resolved - or any other appropriate measure of job productivity.
It is important that the employee and manager arrive upon a shared definition of the deliverables and timetable together. This ensures that everyone is on the "same page" and prevents miscommunication. It also ensures that the goals and expectations are realistic.
A manager's value to an organization is as more of a coach and mentor, not an overseer. This move away from "eyeball management," and the resulting clearer definition of employee job responsibilities, is one of the major contributing factors to the improved productivity normally experienced with virtual teams.
Shifting your focus to performance based management will help you build a more productive mobile workforce.
IMPROVING COMMUNICATION (STAYING CONNECTED) Effective communication is one of the most important elements to ensuring a successful virtual team. This is one area of remote work that technology helps make very easy. A variety of tools are available that allow employees to stay in touch and collaborate.
The most obvious way to promote ease of communication with remote workers is to have defined working hours. By clearly setting hours employees need to be available, you can circumvent a common point of confusion and ensure timely communication. Recognize, however, that there is a balance between being in touch and being pestered. This balance must be developed over time.
When remote workers are not immediately available, or communication is not taking place in ‘real time', another area that can cause challenges is the timeliness of communication. Managers and on-site coworkers are often concerned with not being able to get in touch with remote workers when needed.
An easy, but often overlooked, solution to this problem is to create a set schedule for checking and responding to voice messages and e-mail. This can be hourly, twice a day, or whatever is appropriate for your situation. This schedule, along with an expected response time, allows everyone to rest assured that their messages will be received and a response is forthcoming.
There are also a variety of practices managers can implement that assist remote employees to stay "connected" and still feel like part of the gang at the office. These include having regularly scheduled phone calls, including virtual team members in impromptu lunches and other social events, and routing more informal information, memos, and FYI items to them.
HANDLING MEETINGS AND SCHEDULES Meetings serve a variety of crucial purposes for any organization or team project including sharing information, keeping up to date on developments, making decisions, reporting on progress, brainstorming, and exploring ideas, plans, and alternatives.
Keeping track of everyone's schedule and including remote workers in meetings can appear daunting to an organization investigating virtual teamwork. By being creative with time management and using technology and tools properly, these can become non-issues.
There are web-based groupware and virtual office platforms as well as dedicated software solutions available that manage group schedules and shared calendars. These allow both on and off-site employees to access current schedules and up-to-date information on last minute scheduling changes.
An important realization is that not all meetings need to be face-to-face. If you use technology properly, remote workers can use a combination of teleconferencing, videoconferencing, web conferencing, and groupware to participate in meetings and attend presentations in real time without the additional cost or time requirement to travel. These tools also allow you to include remote workers in important ad hoc meetings that arise.
For times when face-to-face communication is preferable or necessary, schedule meetings when mobile workers and virtual team members will be in the office. A simple approach is to schedule consistent meetings such as a staff meeting the 2nd Tuesday of every month or a team meeting every Friday. This type of regularity makes meetings easier to plan around.
FEEDBACK AND SUPPORT An important but basic management technique that is often neglected is giving employees ongoing feedback and support. Many employees - at all organizational levels - feel they don't get enough feedback from managers on their performance. This type of ongoing discussion takes on heightened importance with virtual teams.
Regular meetings should be scheduled between managers and remote workers to assess needs, give feedback, and discuss problems. These are excellent opportunities to agree upon the scope of work to be done, timelines, and deadlines.
Another important way to improve the relationship with remote or mobile workers is to be
Business process outsourcing (BPO) is a broad term referring to outsourcing in all fields. A BPO differentiates itself by either putting in new technology or applying existing technology in a new way to improve a process.Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) is the delegation of one or more IT-intensive business processes to an external provider that in turn owns, administers and manages the selected process based on defined and measurable performance criteria. Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) is one of the fastest growing segments of the Information Technology Enabled Services (ITES) industry.Few of the motivation factors as to why BPO is gaining ground are:Factor Cost Advantage Economy of Scale Business Risk Mitigation Superior Competency Utilization ImprovementGenerally outsourcing can be defined as - An organization entering into a contract with another organization to operate and manage one or more of its business processes.Different Types of Services Being Offered By BPO'suctive mobile workforce.
IMPROVING COMMUNICATION (STAYING CONNECTED) Effective communication is one of the most important elements to ensuring a successful virtual team. This is one area of remote work that technology helps make very easy. A variety of tools are available that allow employees to stay in touch and collaborate.
The most obvious way to promote ease of communication with remote workers is to have defined working hours. By clearly setting hours employees need to be available, you can circumvent a common point of confusion and ensure timely communication. Recognize, however, that there is a balance between being in touch and being pestered. This balance must be developed over time.
When remote workers are not immediately available, or communication is not taking place in ‘real time', another area that can cause challenges is the timeliness of communication. Managers and on-site coworkers are often concerned with not being able to get in touch with remote workers when needed.
An easy, but often overlooked, solution to this problem is to create a set schedule for checking and responding to voice messages and e-mail. This can be hourly, twice a day, or whatever is appropriate for your situation. This schedule, along with an expected response time, allows everyone to rest assured that their messages will be received and a response is forthcoming.
There are also a variety of practices managers can implement that assist remote employees to stay "connected" and still feel like part of the gang at the office. These include having regularly scheduled phone calls, including virtual team members in impromptu lunches and other social events, and routing more informal information, memos, and FYI items to them.
HANDLING MEETINGS AND SCHEDULES Meetings serve a variety of crucial purposes for any organization or team project including sharing information, keeping up to date on developments, making decisions, reporting on progress, brainstorming, and exploring ideas, plans, and alternatives.
Keeping track of everyone's schedule and including remote workers in meetings can appear daunting to an organization investigating virtual teamwork. By being creative with time management and using technology and tools properly, these can become non-issues.
There are web-based groupware and virtual office platforms as well as dedicated software solutions available that manage group schedules and shared calendars. These allow both on and off-site employees to access current schedules and up-to-date information on last minute scheduling changes.
An important realization is that not all meetings need to be face-to-face. If you use technology properly, remote workers can use a combination of teleconferencing, videoconferencing, web conferencing, and groupware to participate in meetings and attend presentations in real time without the additional cost or time requirement to travel. These tools also allow you to include remote workers in important ad hoc meetings that arise.
For times when face-to-face communication is preferable or necessary, schedule meetings when mobile workers and virtual team members will be in the office. A simple approach is to schedule consistent meetings such as a staff meeting the 2nd Tuesday of every month or a team meeting every Friday. This type of regularity makes meetings easier to plan around.
FEEDBACK AND SUPPORT An important but basic management technique that is often neglected is giving employees ongoing feedback and support. Many employees - at all organizational levels - feel they don't get enough feedback from managers on their performance. This type of ongoing discussion takes on heightened importance with virtual teams.
Regular meetings should be scheduled between managers and remote workers to assess needs, give feedback, and discuss problems. These are excellent opportunities to agree upon the scope of work to be done, timelines, and deadlines.
Another important way to improve the relationship with remote or mobile workers is to be
Status exists in all societies but varies in fundamental ways. Cross cultural differences in they way in which we perceive status, gain status and react to status differ from culture to culture.In this article we examine the cross cultural differences with relation to status and analyse how they manifest in certain areas in the workplace. For the sake of simplicity we identify two types of status; ‘ascribed-status’ and ‘achieved-status’.Ascribed-status:Ascribed-status refers to those cultures that base status upon external qualities such as age, wealth, education or gender. If one has the right external characteristics, status is ascribed to them. In such cultures there is little room for others to gain status through actions and achievements.Achieved-status:Achieved-status, as its title suggests, is earned. Internal qualities are valued more than external ones. Therefore, status is achieved through accomplishments such as hard work and contributions to a company or community. In such cultures status is
There are also a variety of practices managers can implement that assist remote employees to stay "connected" and still feel like part of the gang at the office. These include having regularly scheduled phone calls, including virtual team members in impromptu lunches and other social events, and routing more informal information, memos, and FYI items to them.
HANDLING MEETINGS AND SCHEDULES Meetings serve a variety of crucial purposes for any organization or team project including sharing information, keeping up to date on developments, making decisions, reporting on progress, brainstorming, and exploring ideas, plans, and alternatives.
Keeping track of everyone's schedule and including remote workers in meetings can appear daunting to an organization investigating virtual teamwork. By being creative with time management and using technology and tools properly, these can become non-issues.
There are web-based groupware and virtual office platforms as well as dedicated software solutions available that manage group schedules and shared calendars. These allow both on and off-site employees to access current schedules and up-to-date information on last minute scheduling changes.
An important realization is that not all meetings need to be face-to-face. If you use technology properly, remote workers can use a combination of teleconferencing, videoconferencing, web conferencing, and groupware to participate in meetings and attend presentations in real time without the additional cost or time requirement to travel. These tools also allow you to include remote workers in important ad hoc meetings that arise.
For times when face-to-face communication is preferable or necessary, schedule meetings when mobile workers and virtual team members will be in the office. A simple approach is to schedule consistent meetings such as a staff meeting the 2nd Tuesday of every month or a team meeting every Friday. This type of regularity makes meetings easier to plan around.
FEEDBACK AND SUPPORT An important but basic management technique that is often neglected is giving employees ongoing feedback and support. Many employees - at all organizational levels - feel they don't get enough feedback from managers on their performance. This type of ongoing discussion takes on heightened importance with virtual teams.
Regular meetings should be scheduled between managers and remote workers to assess needs, give feedback, and discuss problems. These are excellent opportunities to agree upon the scope of work to be done, timelines, and deadlines.
Another important way to improve the relationship with remote or mobile workers is to be
Entrepreneurs are often told to be flexible in their approach to business, but often it is imperative that you are NOT flexible. Here’s a few examples.When it pays NOT to be flexible. Prices: Keep your standard prices at the same levels for several months. This makes your offers much more believable. Customer Contact: Always personalize contact with your customers. Obviously when you have many customers much of your documentation is standard. But you must always add personal items such as their name, what they last bought from you and when. This makes your customer feel wanted and individually looked after. Marketing Material: You should ensure that your products are instantly recognizable by using the same naming convention, logos, colors, fonts etc. Advertising: Your advertising must always be targeted to your market and potential customers. Make sure that you have a marketing plan and locate places and publications that you target audience will congregate aroun
For times when face-to-face communication is preferable or necessary, schedule meetings when mobile workers and virtual team members will be in the office. A simple approach is to schedule consistent meetings such as a staff meeting the 2nd Tuesday of every month or a team meeting every Friday. This type of regularity makes meetings easier to plan around.
FEEDBACK AND SUPPORT An important but basic management technique that is often neglected is giving employees ongoing feedback and support. Many employees - at all organizational levels - feel they don't get enough feedback from managers on their performance. This type of ongoing discussion takes on heightened importance with virtual teams.
Regular meetings should be scheduled between managers and remote workers to assess needs, give feedback, and discuss problems. These are excellent opportunities to agree upon the scope of work to be done, timelines, and deadlines.
Another important way to improve the relationship with remote or mobile workers is to be sure to include them in feedback and praise. Many managers and executives give feedback and praise to their employees in a very informal way, often when they see these colleagues or coworkers in the office. Remote employees don't have as many opportunities to bump into the boss or a manager, so some extra effort is required to keep them in the loop.
This doesn't mean a lot of extra work, it's more a presence of mind. Even using simple, quick ways of letting people know how they are doing - such as a brief voice message or email, or a quick note jotted in the margin of a report or memo - helps employees stay motivated and on target.
Also, don't forget to occasionally make a pat on the back public, like at a staff meeting. This assures onsite workers that the remote workers are carrying their load and can minimize any possible resentment that onsite employees feel toward virtual team members and their work arrangement.
Fear of the challenges involved in managing virtual teams and keeping them connected are two of the most common obstacles organizations face. This often prevents them from taking advantage of the power and flexibility that comes with having a more mobile workforce.
Don't let these fears get in your way. The necessary management techniques and strategies are not new, they are the same things that good managers have been doing for years to build trust and clear communication among their team. Using the guidelines I've shared with you in these four key areas you can effectively work from anywhere and keep your team connected!
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