With both remote and in-house staff, it's really important to decide early on what is important to you. As the business owner, it can be easy to fall into the trap of wanting your staff to look like they are working hard. There are common ideas about what hard work looks like: overtime, silent typing, punctuality, and so on.
If you think about it though you will realize that it's not working hard that you are after; it's results. And those perceptions of what a hard working person does don't necessarily have anything to do with results.
Moreover with remote staff, you don't actually know what they are doing most of the time. For all you know they are chatting all day long, sitting in their underwear (don't ask me who they are chatting to), arriving at their desk late, and finishing early. Not only don't you know, but you can never know!
This is actually a very good thing. It will force you to realize that all that's actually important is that your staff produce results. If you can find someone who can do in an hour what other people do in eight hours and then charge you as if it took four, that's still a great result!
The reality with remote staff is that there are no controls on how they work, and trying to add them is probably not a very effective pursuit. Instead you should concentrate on two things:
First you must always give your staff clear and defined parameters about what you need them to do. If it's important to have someone checking comments daily so that discussion can flow, then that's a parameter you need to communicate. If it's important that articles are published on schedule so that readers know what to expect, then that's a parameter you must tell your writers and editor.
Importantly you must provide context when setting parameters: Why is it important that comments are approved daily? Why is it important that articles hit the schedule? Adding context helps your staff to understand why your requests matter and encourages them to think holistically about their role on the site.
The most important parameters to set for jobs are the results you are expecting. For example, if you are looking to encourage discussion, then make sure your writers know that they are being judged on their ability to create articles that get discussed!
Providing parameters with context lets your staff know what is expected of them and why it's expected. This then gives them the freedom to deliver you the results you are looking for in whatever way is most suitable.
When looking at the performance of your staff you should be focused on just results. Did they fulfill the requirements of the job set at the beginning? Did they exceed them? Did they produce outstanding results?
Importantly, you can forget about whether they clocked exactly the right number of hours, or completed all the work at the last minute, or did the work while sitting on a cruise liner bound for Jamaica. The only thing you care about is the result! This will not only liberate you from worrying about rubbish, but it will provide much greater freedom for your staff to do the work the way they are most comfortable, productive, and happy.
Judging staff this way is only possible, however, if you have set clear and context-laden parameters to begin with. If your staff doesn't know what is expected of them or why, it's going to be very difficult for them to deliver.
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02152011
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