It is very difficult to manage employees when you are away from the office because you do not have a birds-eye view of what they are doing. Whether you are on a vacation, an out-of-town meeting, or simply away from the office, there must be some way to keep a close eye on your employees even if you cannot actually see them.
Luckily, there are different tactics to help ease your stress when you are away. You can:
Give them somebody’s contact information who you trust
This way your employees have somebody to contact with any questions and concerns in case they have an urgent issue and cannot get in contact with you.
Create various projects to logically categorize tasks with your team
Make sure that you assign each of your employee’s different assignments that need to be complete while you are gone. Ensure that the directions are
clear. To guarantee clarity, go over these guidelines with each of your workers before you leave to make sure you are both at a consensus.
Add notes and upload files to tasks
It is a good idea to make sure that there that the directions are written down in a specific place for reference. Any files that they need in order to complete the task should be in the same place to guarantee top-notch organization.
Add due dates and set task reminders to make sure nothing slips through the cracks
It is easy for some workers to get distracted especially when their boss isn’t glaring right down at them. For this reason, you should set strict deadlines with your employees and track their progress step-by-step to confirm that they are on the right track. It might even be a good idea to have a place where they can turn in all of their assignments.
Ask your employees to document what they accomplish
This helps them to stay focused on their goals as well as increase their own productivity.
You and your team can do all of the above using
Priority Matrix. You will also have everything in
one place to make sure that everything stays organized. With the app, you can also:
- Utilize in-app chat to reduce email traffic and to communicate with your team in real-time
- Improve visibility and accountability across your team
- Use the Master List to view items across all projects
- Compile daily reports to pass up the chain of command
- Allow your team to collaborate on certain projects, while keeping others private
- Check up on daily and weekly reports about your team
However, one of the most important things you must do while you are gone cannot be tracked using an app because it is that you must
trust that your employees will follow your expectations. Priority Matrix will allow you to track your team's efforts, but it will not make you magically able to trust your team. In Susanne Madsen's post,
"How good is your Ability to trust?" on her blog
Developing Project Leaders, she explains why "trust is essential for working together." If you do not trust your employees, they are not going to trust you. Remember, you hired your employees because they stood out to you in some way, so believe in them.
While it is difficult to be away from your team, it is very doable; you just have to approach it with trust and organization.
