There’s a saying that goes you cannot love someone you do not know. The same is true for employees. If you do not know them, then you cannot take care of them… well.
The big question now is how do you take care of your remote workforce? I’ve been thinking about that for months now. And here are my thoughts:
- Establish a relationship with them. To do this is to reach out to them regularly through email, chat, or call. You ask them how they are, how they feel about their client, their tasks, their work.
- Be there with/for them during the happy and sad occasions, and let them know that they can count on you.
- Help them do a good job especially that they are working elsewhere. They may not get your instructions correctly, or they may hesitate to clarify things with you. Take the initiative to make things clear.
I believe that it’s important for them to feel part of the organization, a family, especially that they are not working in a usual office situation. They may have reasons to feel a bit left out, or may have the feeling that they’re in between–not really in, but not completely out.
If you really think about it, taking care of remote workers is not much different from taking care of employees in an office. It’s all about people. It’s about relationships.
