How to get remote employees to actually do their jobs so that I don't have to make them come in the office?

[Anonymous]

I have been a remote worker for 15+ years. The key is clear production expectations. I have always worked with very specific production quotas. I have to get X amount of work accomplished per week. Anyone who does not meet quotas is OUT (this has been for all the companies I have worked for). My employers have all had clear evaluation times as well: quarterly, monthly...It is not always pleasant, but keeps everyone honest.

[Anonymous]

Do not hire people under the age of 26 and you will get dedicated employees.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Do not hire people under the age of 26 and you will get dedicated employees.

Yea find me 40 year old who can handle social media presence… you can’t.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP, I'm sorry you are getting attacked. You SAID you want to continue the WFH culture and are looking for help making that work. I'm sorry you aren't getting good advice.

One thing is to set clear deadlines and to require frequent status updates. That is difficult for some, particularly new managers and small business owners, to do that because they assume/expect as much dedication and passion for the work as they have. It will feel uncomfortable, but it is the job.

And I also acknowledge that not all businesses are the same, and in some it IS more complex to manage, and at a minimum takes some adjustments to how you manage. I hope posters will give you actual advice on your situation that is helpful.

I think OP is getting very consistent advice, actually, about how to manage people. She hasn't come back to say whether she's already tried it, but I agree with you that small business owners typically have not thought much about management.

[Anonymous]

“Jan, you are not meeting expectations in that you have no x, y and z. I have trusted you to have the autonomy to manage yourself WFH but that does not appear to be happening. If I don’t see a, b and c by XX date, I will have no choice but require you to work from the office full time so I can provide better support to enable you to accomplish these tasks is a more timely and efficient manner.”

[Anonymous]

You should be using a task assignment project manager program like jira or devops board

[Anonymous]

The OP isn't getting great advice because she won't give any information about what her employees do or how she monitors productivity in the office.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have been a remote worker for 15+ years. The key is clear production expectations. I have always worked with very specific production quotas. I have to get X amount of work accomplished per week. Anyone who does not meet quotas is OUT (this has been for all the companies I have worked for). My employers have all had clear evaluation times as well: quarterly, monthly...It is not always pleasant, but keeps everyone honest.

What if the job doesn’t lend itself to production quotas? I hear this all the time but my field (litigation support) requires the completion different tasks of varying complexity and priority on a weekly basis. And typical on project is, at some point, put on hold for a higher priority project.

I am not the OP but trying to understand how clear deliverables and production quotas work in fields that require an employee to be nimble and perform a variety of tasks.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have been a remote worker for 15+ years. The key is clear production expectations. I have always worked with very specific production quotas. I have to get X amount of work accomplished per week. Anyone who does not meet quotas is OUT (this has been for all the companies I have worked for). My employers have all had clear evaluation times as well: quarterly, monthly...It is not always pleasant, but keeps everyone honest.

What if the job doesn’t lend itself to production quotas? I hear this all the time but my field (litigation support) requires the completion different tasks of varying complexity and priority on a weekly basis. And typical on project is, at some point, put on hold for a higher priority project.

I am not the OP but trying to understand how clear deliverables and production quotas work in fields that require an employee to be nimble and perform a variety of tasks.

In a case like this I would assume the supervisor is giving assignments with due dates and updating the employee when new things become a priority. Then there may be longer term projects employee works on in the background when there's no pressing assignment. A shared document with a list of matters and progress made should be fine. Just as in the office, supervisor should be able to easily reach employee during business hours for an update or a copy of the work done to date whenever needed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have been a remote worker for 15+ years. The key is clear production expectations. I have always worked with very specific production quotas. I have to get X amount of work accomplished per week. Anyone who does not meet quotas is OUT (this has been for all the companies I have worked for). My employers have all had clear evaluation times as well: quarterly, monthly...It is not always pleasant, but keeps everyone honest.

What if the job doesn’t lend itself to production quotas? I hear this all the time but my field (litigation support) requires the completion different tasks of varying complexity and priority on a weekly basis. And typical on project is, at some point, put on hold for a higher priority project.

I am not the OP but trying to understand how clear deliverables and production quotas work in fields that require an employee to be nimble and perform a variety of tasks.

In a case like this I would assume the supervisor is giving assignments with due dates and updating the employee when new things become a priority. Then there may be longer term projects employee works on in the background when there's no pressing assignment. A shared document with a list of matters and progress made should be fine. Just as in the office, supervisor should be able to easily reach employee during business hours for an update or a copy of the work done to date whenever needed.

+1 I’ve always worked in environments where there aren’t easy metrics. The point of management is to have a sense of the scale of tasks people are working on and be able to compare across. I’ve always had at least weekly team meetings to check in and in more interrupt driven roles (eg IT where we have tickets that could take anywhere from 10 minutes to 10 weeks to close) there was usually a daily standup. This has been true across my in-office (air gapped no WFH options at all and strict time card) hybrid and entirely WFH roles.

Get some kind of shared task management list — Google sheets, asana, jira

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have been a remote worker for 15+ years. The key is clear production expectations. I have always worked with very specific production quotas. I have to get X amount of work accomplished per week. Anyone who does not meet quotas is OUT (this has been for all the companies I have worked for). My employers have all had clear evaluation times as well: quarterly, monthly...It is not always pleasant, but keeps everyone honest.

What if the job doesn’t lend itself to production quotas? I hear this all the time but my field (litigation support) requires the completion different tasks of varying complexity and priority on a weekly basis. And typical on project is, at some point, put on hold for a higher priority project.

I am not the OP but trying to understand how clear deliverables and production quotas work in fields that require an employee to be nimble and perform a variety of tasks.

In a case like this I would assume the supervisor is giving assignments with due dates and updating the employee when new things become a priority. Then there may be longer term projects employee works on in the background when there's no pressing assignment. A shared document with a list of matters and progress made should be fine. Just as in the office, supervisor should be able to easily reach employee during business hours for an update or a copy of the work done to date whenever needed.

I don’t disagree with you but I think many on this board consider this micromanaging.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have been a remote worker for 15+ years. The key is clear production expectations. I have always worked with very specific production quotas. I have to get X amount of work accomplished per week. Anyone who does not meet quotas is OUT (this has been for all the companies I have worked for). My employers have all had clear evaluation times as well: quarterly, monthly...It is not always pleasant, but keeps everyone honest.

What if the job doesn’t lend itself to production quotas? I hear this all the time but my field (litigation support) requires the completion different tasks of varying complexity and priority on a weekly basis. And typical on project is, at some point, put on hold for a higher priority project.

I am not the OP but trying to understand how clear deliverables and production quotas work in fields that require an employee to be nimble and perform a variety of tasks.

In a case like this I would assume the supervisor is giving assignments with due dates and updating the employee when new things become a priority. Then there may be longer term projects employee works on in the background when there's no pressing assignment. A shared document with a list of matters and progress made should be fine. Just as in the office, supervisor should be able to easily reach employee during business hours for an update or a copy of the work done to date whenever needed.

I don’t disagree with you but I think many on this board consider this micromanaging.

I'm a huge WFH advocate and what you describe is not micromanaging.

Also, employees can be nimble and use their own judgment and initiative, but still keep the boss in the loop. "Boss, we just got a scope change from Client so I'm going to do x and y. I'll have to postpone z until next week, let me know if that's not ok."
But, not every level of employee can self-direct like that, and those who can typically cost more. In general - in general! - the less you pay, the more hands-on you need to be with tasking.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How would you handle a problematic employee who wasn't meeting expectations if they were fully in the office?

Do the same thing with remote employees.

The remote work isn't the problem. They are not doing their work without being micromanaged-- THAT is the problem. Put them on a PIP if needed. If they can't handle the job then you let them go and find someone who can. Leave the remote aspect out of it because at the end of the day, it's irrelevant.

I think this is a good step. However, it’s important to frame work from home as a benefit and not something to take for granted—much like a bonus.

Tell everyone that they can apply for work from home at the start of the quarter. It will be approved or denied based on performance.

No way. Just hire the remote team, set expectations and be prepared to fire people if they aren’t delivering.

Why on earth do you people have such a hard time with this??? Being in the office makes no damn difference—people that don’t work at home, don’t work any better in the office, and I don’t have time to hold their hands.

+1 also it doesn't sound like op has an office for them to go into

you have to hire good people.

you also have to have clear and measurable goals. what do you expect done any given day/week/month? do you have project status updates? if not, implement them.

but also - what sort of messing around is this? is this someone tossing laundry in the wash while it's 9-5, or is it them disappearing for hours during the work day without letting you know, or is it them actually not meeting their work product expectations?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP, You need to tell the workers up front when you hire them that you monitor their logins, you monitor their keystrokes, they login and start at 8:00 am, they logout for lunch, they log back in until 5:00.

Work is kept in a file that you can access.

Boy, please let them know that before the offer so they can decline moving forward

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have been a remote worker for 15+ years. The key is clear production expectations. I have always worked with very specific production quotas. I have to get X amount of work accomplished per week. Anyone who does not meet quotas is OUT (this has been for all the companies I have worked for). My employers have all had clear evaluation times as well: quarterly, monthly...It is not always pleasant, but keeps everyone honest.

What if the job doesn’t lend itself to production quotas? I hear this all the time but my field (litigation support) requires the completion different tasks of varying complexity and priority on a weekly basis. And typical on project is, at some point, put on hold for a higher priority project.

I am not the OP but trying to understand how clear deliverables and production quotas work in fields that require an employee to be nimble and perform a variety of tasks.

Then you have a Monday board or some other project management platform to track what needs doing and what has been done. There has to be some way for people to know what you're working on, and what hasn't been done, other than having to ask all the time.