We all know that the most important resource for a company is its Human Resources.
And for years now we have been watching how the HR department of every corporation has evolved. After all, it is one of the most crucial departments in an organisation, taking care of recruitment to training to benefits to even legal responsibilities, HR is a tough hat to wear.
However, it is one thing to perform your job as the HR manager in an office environment where you are easily able to build relations with your employees to appropriately manage them and a whole different story when your office teams are remotely located all over the world.
In such a situation, it is easy to get overwhelmed while streamlining the processes with old and new employees alike. So what is it that you can do to ensure that distance does not get in the way of your duties as the HR? Let’s take a look.
Clearly explain your collaboration and communication platforms
The major most trade-off for remote working is that people do not get enough face-time with the rest of the teams which was once an important part of one’s work life. However, communication is still the key to binding the teams together in every work culture.
In such a scenario, there are certain technologies that are put in place for all the remote teams for times they need to collaborate for work or simply join-in for a meeting. And these softwares play a major role in improving the productivity of the team.
So, the key here is to set concrete standards and processes for your team’s to use these communication channels. Softwares for video calling, audio conferencing, document sharing, or even the all-encompassing online whiteboards, must all have clearly defined guidelines for them, declaring them as the sole platforms for all required communications.
And keep in mind that over-communication is a better idea while dealing with remote employees.
Organising effective project management
Project management might be the job for the team managers of the company but setting up the stage for them is the crucial task in the HR’s palate.
Putting together collaboration technologies alone is not enough then. For instance,
- The total number of people or teams can use a particular platform at one time.
- The number of projects that can be managed simultaneously
- The guidelines for tracking the progress of the project
And these are only the most basic queries to take care of.
So whether it is a group of specific softwares or specific ones for all the teams, the decision is in your hands where you have to keep into consideration the end users of the software and effectively accommodate all the business requirements.
Analysing employee performances
Putting in the performance parameters when you have a team present around you in a brick-and-mortar office is an altogether different deal from reviewing the performances of your remote employees.
The measure of productivity has shifted from the number of hours in the office to the target Achievement and overall contributions and impacts made by individual employees for the company.
Therefore, while working with a remote team, it is crucial to clearly define the metrics of performance evaluation. So that, at the time of the yearly review, a fair judgment can be made.
Build an engaging environment
Just like everything else, building a proactive and engaging environment for remote employees is also a somewhat complicated task. But it is an important one because everything, from employee motivation to productivity, emerges from a strong sense of belonging to the company culture. This is when people take responsibilities and go out of their ways to complete a project and become assets to the company.
So doing it with remote employees means making them a part of all the rituals of your company. Getting together at least once a year for a retreat helps people to connect with each other in the best way possible.
The remote work culture is not a fad and with all the right technologies in place, it is one of the most productive and seemingly, most popular ways of working the world is adapting to. So the need and role of HR in remote companies are only going to grow from here onwards. It is up to us to make the best of it.
