Alexandra Levits Water Cooler Wisdom Best Practices for Managing Telecommuters

Alexandra Levit's Water Cooler Wisdom Best Practices for Managing Telecommuters Maybe you’re a telecommuter and the rest of your team works in an office, or maybe your team is spread out across continents and time zones. Regardless, being a good boss when your team members operate remotely requires a special skill set. Move in the right direction with these four suggestions for managing telecommuters. Set Expectations In any kind of virtual work environment, assumptions are dangerous and you as the manager are responsible for clearly communicating everything. Roles and team rules and protocols should be tightly defined, and your team members should understand how to touch base regularly on project statuses and how to escalate urgent issues. Hold Efficient Phone Meetings Send out agendas in advance so your team knows exactly what will be covered and how to prepare. Emphasize the importance of punctuality, and build trust by staying to the time allotted. Establish meeting ground rules like putting yourself on mute if you are not speaking and allow discussion time for input and consensus. For the rest of the tips, check out the full post at the FlexJobs blog.