Photo by Igor Miske on Unsplash
Top 7 Rules for Business Owners and Managers to LEAD Staff that is Now Telecommuting and Working from Home
Are you a business owner or manager that NOW has a staff telecommuting and working from home?
First you are a leader and your staff, your team.
You manage things, you lead people.
– Rear Admiral Grace Murray Hopper
Your job is to lead the team. The team is looking for you for direction.
For most this telecommuting and working from home is new unchartered territory.
The team is nervous, unsure of things and outright scared.
It is your job to lead. Quality leadership will drive business in the right direction.
Leadership Rule 1
Trust. You have to trust the employees. Give them a chance. This working from home thing is new for them. They are not going to take a check and sit on the couch all day…and if they do you failed by letting them on the team a long time ago.
Leadership Rule 2
Recognize the stress and challenge working from home presents to your team. Some are balancing, juggling and managing work, kids, e learning, pets and their household all while trying to get their work done.
Leadership Rule 3
Employees must have a clear understanding of what is expected of them. Shared with them the goals and objectives they need to accomplish while working from home. No surprises for the leader or the team.
Leadership Rule 4
Performance needs to be measured. All parties need to understand how this measurement is going to be done. What are the key performance indicators, metrics and the performance ruler that will be used to measure Team Performance?
Leadership Rule 5
Productive over busy, always! As a leader do NOT make the mistake of creating a culture where you team is at home being busy. Instead create a culture where the team at home is PRODUCTIVE! Busy does NOT equal productive.
EPIC Failure is looking for your team to be busy. Busy does not drive the business forward. Period!
Leadership Rule 6
If you are constantly looking for activity for the sake of activity by your team online…. You failed. Don’t get lost and hung up what the team is doing every hour of the workday. Focus instead on Number 5 above.
Leadership Rule 7
Communicate. Schedule times to communicate one on one and as a group or department with your team. Thanks to technology you can leverage one of the video communication platforms and hold group meetings. Schedule times pro-actively and hold them consistently. For example, every Wednesday at 1:00 PM. Have an agenda, open with each team member sharing something positive, cover the progress to goals, ask for feedback and input and THANK YOUR TEAM!
These 7 Rules will help you be an effective leader. The result, a positive impact on business performance. Everything from profits, to total revenue and to MORAL of your TEAM will improve!
Ergoteknix Incorporated provides business development consulting to small businesses so they can scale from 6-7 and 7-8 figures in annual sales.