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I ran into that situation from several perspectives - as a telecommuting
team member, as the manager of telecommuting team member(s), and as a
telecommuting team manager. You're right - there is an issue with
visibility. I found that working as a team manager doesn't permit
telecommuting more than 1 or 2 days a week, especially if your team is
on-site.
I also found that managing a team of telecommuters (there were 3 on my team)
is relatively straightforward if they ALL telecommute (you have to be *very*
clear about duties and responsibilities, and use email ALOT). If only one
member of your team telecommutes, then the issue is a little cloudier.
Eventually, our team evolved into the following strategies:
- regular team/project meetings 1-2 times per week (1 a week if the project
deliverables were fairly straightforward and things were going smoothly, 2 a
week if things were getting "fuzzy"). The telecommuters were required to
come into the office for at least 1 of these meetings. I followed up with an
email summarizing the points of the meeting.
- quickie "check-in" meetings with the team EVERY MORNING. This didn't take
long, only about 10 minutes, but we discussed what everybody was doing that
day, where they saw they might need my involvement as a manager, and how I
could make it easier for them to do their jobs. These meetings were speaker
phone and conference call meetings. Again, I followed up with an email
summarizing the points of the meeting.
- very clear expectations in terms of the tasks and timelines. This was in
the form of an MS-Project spreadsheet-like document that I updated weekly
(following our weekly project meeting) and sent out to all the team members.
- we cross-edited our work, so that a common project style emerged quickly.
For the telecommuting members, we permitted online editing (with specific
styles associated with specific people). (BTW - The most common complaint I
heard about online editing was that "I do all the work for them - all they
have to do is change the style and the work's done." This is ameliorated
when ALL the members of the team do that for each other.)
Chris, I hope this helps. Managing a telecommuter is definitely work. I also
made it clear to the telecommuters that when they decided to telecommute,
they would take a visibility hit in the office. I indicated to them that as
the project/team manager, I was only responsible to ensure their appropriate
involvement in the project work, but if they wanted visibility beyond the
project work, they were responsible for that themselves.
Good luck!
Leslie Johnson
Saltmine LLC
-----Original Message-----
From: Chris Hamilton [mailto:cah_91 -at- yahoo -dot- com]
Sent: Monday, April 03, 2000 5:12 AM
To: TECHWR-L
Subject: Managing telecommuters
This list has discussed telecommuting many times from
an employee's perspective. I'd like to gain your
wisdom from a manager's perspective.
One of the problems for a telecommuting employee is
getting that visibility that the onsite people get
naturally. I'm managing an employee that telecommutes
full time and I'm wondering what strategies that I, as
a manager, can use to overcome that problem and best
get a feel for what's going on beyond the status
reports.
Any experience or ideas you all have would be most
appreciated.
Thanks so much.
Chris
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