1. Schedule regular meetings

If you have contractors or employees, having meetings weekly, bi-weekly or monthly helps your remote team provide updates and seek clarifications.

It’s a great way to know your team better and encourage an open dialogue. Also, you are able to monitor how your projects are developing and make timely improvements.

Use tools like Zoom, Skype, Team, etc., as they connect everyone easily.

2. Don’t forget your company culture

Just because you don’t have an office full of employees doesn’t mean you can’t have a strong company culture.

Share your company vision, mission statement and goals with your employees. Value their inputs and let them contribute as much as possible to your corporate identity with their skills and strengths.

You may even notice that some of your employees have leadership qualities and you can help them pursue leadership training if they’re interested.

Organise company events. Whether it’s a barbecue, bowling or cruise, you’ll get to know your people better, promote company culture and instill a sense of inclusion.

3. Set clear expectations

Employees in an office have a clear idea of work hours, rules and guidelines but remote employees may not. Adding to the difficulty: your remote employees may not as they may work from different time zones.

As part of your leadership development plan, consider your business needs and think about what you can reasonably expect from employees. For example:

• All emails must be responded to within 24 hours

• Emails are not required to be answered on weekends

• Weekly hours must be submitted by Friday evening for payroll

4. Use a time-tracking tool

As a small business owner you need to focus on maximising productivity. A time-tracking tool will help employees stay accountable and let you review their performance.

Also, time-tracking tools such as AccountSight, Toggl or Hubstaff will make doing payroll much easier. You’ll have to-the-minute data of how much time each employee is spending on tasks.

Time-tracking tools also help employees by saving them the hassle of manually tracking time and helping them focus on one task at a time rather than getting distracted.

5. Be organized yet flexible

While you have certain expectations of your staff and need them to meet deadlines, respect how your employees work best.

Some people need to ask more questions than others. Some employees like to brainstorm with other team members, while others like to work alone. Some contractors may benefit from leadership training, while others aren’t interested in expanding their role.

In addition to weekly or bi-weekly meetings have simple ways your remote employees can reach you – whether it’s by text or online messaging. Encourage communication and make it easy for your employees to get hold of you with questions or concerns.

This is a learning process for you too! Consider it on-the-field leadership training. Managing your remote team can be hard at first and there will always be challenges along the way.

If something isn’t working, change it. Listen to your employees’ feedback and use it to improve.