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Supervising in a Virtual Environment
By Gail Finger, Spring 2005
Supervising employees who work at a different location presents unique challenges. Managers must ensure that employees are engaged in their work and that productivity is high while having fewer options for communicating with and motivating employees. Mastering virtual supervision is essential if you want your virtual organization to be truly successful.
A great deal of research has been done on how important employee engagement is to an organization’s bottom line, yet employee engagement overall remains low. A top driver of employee engagement is management’s interest in employees’ well being. So how does a virtual supervisor demonstrate their interest in employees’ success? There are three key components: one-on-one time, soliciting feedback, and taking action on that feedback.
One-on-one time
Nothing builds trust, credibility and positive supervisor-employee relationships better than regular one-on-one meetings. All supervisors should meet with their direct reports bi-weekly at a minimum. These meetings can be brief. Ten to fifteen minutes will suffice. The purpose is to check in with employees on how their projects are going, learn what else you can do to support them in their work and to listen for and respond to any concerns they might be having.
However, most of the time in a virtual organization, face-to-face meetings with every employee are not possible. The next best approach is to schedule regular telephone meetings to ensure adequate one-on-one time. Speaking on the phone is more personal than e-mail. Although much can be communicated through e-mail, it is not an effective way to convey caring and build a trusting relationship with direct reports. The personal contact will improve team performance.
In addition to these frequent conversations to touch base, supervisors and managers should have longer quarterly meetings via phone or video conference to look more closely at long-term projects, goals that have been set for the employee’s development, and employee’s progress in meeting those goals.
Think about ways that you can arrange to meet face-to-face periodically. For example, if you have to be at a remote site for another reason, make a point to schedule meetings with your direct reports that day. If it is possible to arrange face time with employees once or twice a year, do it! The benefits will far outweigh the costs.
Soliciting feedback
When you are co-located with your employees, you have opportunities to observe people in their work environments, hear the tone of interactions, and solicit informal feedback. When managing virtually you must develop excellent interpersonal rapport with each employee so you can ask for that crucial feedback. If employees don’t trust you, they won’t be honest; they’ll just say what they think you want to hear.
Once you have developed rapport, you can ask employees how they are getting along with co-workers, how they are feeling about the division of labor on projects, and whether they feel supported by you and upper management in their work Anonymous surveys and web based tools can also provide a wealth of information and should be used at least twice a year.
Taking action on the feedback
Supervisors, managers and leaders must all be willing to follow-up on all of the input received from employees. When supervisors demonstrate that employees’ opinions and feedback are valued, employees will be more engaged in their work and will put in extra effort to increase productivity and efficiency. Let them know you have thought about what they said and your plan for addressing the issue. Ask their opinions about the solution. The more input employees have the more likely they will become advocates for the solution.
Remember, supervising and motivating employees is no easy task even in the best of circumstances. Supervising virtually brings added challenges. Avoid problems before they occur by implementing the steps described above. You’ll be glad you did when you see productivity increase!
Read more about how coaching can improve your managers’ supervisory skills and have a look at the variety of Training and Development programs available for your managers.