Professionals working outside the traditional office environment is the new norm, and therefore, the portfolio of necessary leadership skills has broadened to include employee inspiration from afar. Imagine this scenario, rather than traveling to an office each day to work from a designated desk, remote staff can execute their projects and exceed their goals wherever they wish.
The strategy of ‘remote work’ should be based on the reward and punishment combination by making sure that the punishments needn’t be any severe but the ground rules of the work must be well explained and understood by the remote workers. All the terms and conditions of the work must be agreed upon by the workers in advance and this ultimately leads to the success of a team that operates remote work.
The rules need to be recorded somewhere, where it can be alluded to if the team’s behavior starts to drift from what had been agreed before. Beginning with valid basic rules will help prevent the risks that can arise from just letting things work out themselves which they seldom do, by the way. The strategy is not to sit back and let things happen on its own but it’s a resentment recipe, perceived unfairness, suspicion, and low morality.
One of the commonly agreed characteristics of remote work these days is the use of AI tools to manage efficiency. Such tools can also help enhance clear and honest governance since they evaluate performance rationally, which in turn provides trust among leaders and employees.
To be able to work with AI tools, they must be incorporated with total transparency so that everyone realizes what they are intended to do and how the data they disclose would be used in the efficiency drive to help employees maximize their goals. Unleashing the potential of employees is directly linked to unleashing the potential of the business and AI has a lot to contribute to strengthening this powerful connection.
Communication is very important. Effective communication is essential for good dynamics in the team and for keeping people motivated. There is a need for both individuals as well as team get-togethers in both online and offline mode. A leader must commit to checking in at regular intervals with each individual, and host team meetings at scheduled times. The leader must assure that he/she would be there to support them. There’s plenty of ideas out there on how team members can relax and have fun together, even virtually, and people will be happy to pool ideas and come up with an event schedule.
Training is very important and for the C-suite to provide training for its rather than assuming the leaders would have the necessary skills for remote leadership. Among all human interaction is the most important thing and time must be scheduled to have small talks virtually.
It is just as important to have robust HR procedures in place when it comes to supporting remote workers. Remote or not, the responsibility remains to the welfare of the team.
