As companies endeavour to meet social and employee responsibilities there seems to be a growing trend with the number of companies allowing staff to work from home.

Many sources seem to suggest that there are benefits for both the employer and employee with working from home, the employer gaining from higher productivity and reduced long term costs; the employee, greater flexibility and the great feeling that they wont have to fight the rest of the world on the road, train or bus in order to get to work on time.

If working from home is going to be successful, managers must expand their styles of management beyond traditional face to face methods. They need to develop a different approach as well as understanding what good looks like to enable stretching yet achievable targets to be set and progress monitored remotely.

Managing someone you seldom see is difficult.  The big challenge for managers comes with developing a suitable system to effectively communicate, motivate and monitor home workers with to ensure that targets are being understood and being met.

As my colleague referenced in an earlier blog employee engagement and the right behaviours will deliver the right results http://www.eguk.co.uk/blog/remote-working-and-employee-engagement/

I feel one of the key issues is a lack of effective management and the lack of social interaction which often lead to feelings of isolation.

I’m interested to know if you are a manager with team members working from home.  How has your management style had to change and how do you monitor your staff at home? What system do you use and have you developed it in-house or purchased it off the shelf? How successful is it and at what cost?  We can then get some views on your specific experiences.

Please email me to share your experiences at chrisfryer@eguk.co.uk

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