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Managing remote employees can prove rewarding, liberating and fulfilling…or you can feel like an empty nest parent whose kids don’t stay in touch. Building teamwork, trust and trackability are three cornerstones of effective remote management of virtual employees. Learn how to build credibility and confidence with a virtual workforce. Micro-managing vs. micro-monitoring. Often, the difference between resentment and resilience occurs in the subtleties of remote employee management. If virtual employees feel “Big Brother” is watching, they will naturally tend to become defensive. On the other hand, if they feel supported and know they have a safety net, positive results are likely to follow. This class will help managers learn how to: Motivate remote employees Handle conflicts in virtual settings Communicate convincingly from afar Create a tightly-knit team that stays loose

Development of remote employees Training – methods for training remote employees, when to use each Skill vs. talent training On-going mentoring – development as a continuous process Reactionary vs. proactive Socratic coaching How to give good feedback Performance reviews and feedback – frequency, how to conduct and communicate, evaluating team Identifying skills vs talent performance Motivating remote employees Creating leaders and building ownership Empowering employees – enabling employees by giving them decision opportunities. Turning work into play Ways to reward a virtual team No vs. low vs. high cost options Public vs. private reward systems Disciplining remote employees Action plans Key items to include How to deliver How to monitor Handling conflicts between remote team members Hiring remote employees Ideal traits of the remote employee Using the remote employee skill assessment Implementing remote management skills Creating action plans, getting immediate results.

Managing Remote Employees Topics Covered Leading a remote team Setting the vision – how to communicate the team vision and keep employees focused on it in their work efforts. Creating expectations – how to clearly communicate and set performance and team expectations to ensure employees move toward common objectives correctly. Communicating WIIFMs – drive employees toward goals by communicating the benefits to them “what’s in it for me.” Communication Quantity and quality – increased communication needed with remote employees Communication vehicles – the different ways to communicate with a distributed workforce and when and how to use them Picking the appropriate option for different situations How and when to have team meetings Accessibility – establishing your credibility through commitments, guidance, and owning decisions Micro-Monitoring vs. Micro-Managing Creating and using tools to enable employees to manage themselves and track their own performance Increasing responsibility to decrease management time Setting goals – how to engage employees in their own development Managing to expectations Monitoring tools What can be monitored & how to monitor What can be managed & how to manage

Understanding the link between communication and change In this webpaper Chrys Horn observes that communication goals are usually seen as being the achievement of some change – getting people to change something that they do or don’t do, like recycle, exercise more, lose weight, accept possum control, provide better services, consult more effectively etc. However, as she points out, if we are to learn to communicate more effectively, however, it is critical to find frameworks to help us think through communication planning. This paper provides one such framework, another provides tips for effective communication. In other papers Chrys looks at lessons learnt through the Landcare Research collaborative learning group in communicating science and evaluating science communication activities. More writing from Chrys can be found on her blog: Learning, science and environment.

Distributed workforces During the next year, Richey thinks the set-up of many companies will be atypical. “A new generation of young designers and developers entered the workforce in a time of lingering adversity. With a variety of technologies at their fingertips, many creatives have learned to find jobs, network, and acquire new skills from their bedrooms, the corner café, or a destination around the world,” she explains. “As the economy improves, many designers and developers won’t be willing to trade in their work style and relative freedom for a cubicle space. With a growing number of high-profile tech companies embracing a mobile and distributed workforce, employers looking for top-notch talent may need to re-evaluate their workplace culture.”

In gaming, Dull Dude Games founder Iain Lobb predicts an even bigger return to Flash: “Clients will try to steer things towards HTML5, because that’s where the hype is, but I think often the right thing to do will be steering them back towards Flash.”