Flexing It: How to Overcome the Barriers to Remote Work

Employers who allow and/or require their employees to work remotely are reaping the benefits of lowered overhead costs and increased employee engagement. Studies show that despite the image of a remote worker sitting at home eating bonbons, employees who have more say over when and where they work are more productive. In fact, the politics and activity of an office can be a distraction. Many employees complain they can’t get enough work done at their desks and find retreat in coffee shops or their home offices. In fact, a recent Microsoft survey confirms this and shows that most employees believe they are more productive when they work remotely.

Yet, there are still challenges, especially for managers, in making remote work a success. Both employees and employers need to adjust both their expectations and their work habits to make it an effective arrangement. Below are some of the most common barriers to remote work and ways to overcome them.

Barrier #1: “How do I track a remote employee’s productivity?”

First, ask yourself whether it’s important to track time worked or work produced. For salaried employees, you may want to set productivity goals each week or month that the employee needs to meet regardless of how much time she puts in. Productivity may be measured in deliverables or sales targets or another appropriate measure for the position. For situations where you need to have a clearer sense of hours works, extend the use of your company’s T&A system to track employee work time.

Barrier #2: “How do I manage or evaluate the performance of someone who isn’t around?”

The most important thing you can do to help managers with this challenge is to give them training. This may be formal classroom training if it is available at your organization or one-on-one mentoring with another manager who already manages remote workers. Of course, managers must employ good performance management practices. Standards for remote employees should be identical to those who work in an office. Though many managers feel they cannot accurately gauge the performance of someone who they don’t regularly interact with or observe, telecommuting may actually help to eliminate bias in the performance management system. Because they are seldom in the office, remote workers are evaluated solely on their accomplishments. Often times with remote work the concept of high performance is defined purely by the amount of work accomplished.

Communication is also critical. Before an employee begins working remotely, the manager and employee should sit down to discuss expectations, schedule, and troubleshooting. They should also establish how they will communicate when the employee is off site. It is worthwhile to set up protocols about when and how to use the phone, email, instant messaging, Skype or other technologies that enable remote work.

Barrier #3: “My employees are going to work from home? Isn’t that really a just a day off?”

The psychological barriers to remote work are often the most difficult to address. Sometimes it’s the employees who are resistant to the idea, and sometimes it’s the managers. Before implementing any remote work program, be sure to make the business case for it. Point out the benefits such as lower commuting costs, lower energy costs, less employee personal leave time, and lower costs for in-office technology. Explain to managers that they will likely see an increase in productivity from their employees and provide them with the necessary support they need to manage someone remotely. If you have employees who have successfully worked remotely, be sure to share their success stories and explain the critical success factors that made the arrangement work.

Finally, there are bound to be times when the above strategies don’t succeed and remote work doesn’t work out. In those cases, don’t take it out on all employees by completely eliminating the options. Instead, find ways to reconfigure the program so that you as the employer get what you need, or only offer arrangements to those that earn it.

If you missed it, return to the first and second part of the series.