Managers should consider each position thoroughly and determine whether there is potential to create a telework opportunity. As an alternative, the employee may be able to telework one day a week, or half a day for two days a week.
Breaking the Cultural Barriers
A telework program challenges management traditions, as it fundamentally changes how a manager should think about supervising employees. With teleworkers, managers should evaluate an employee’ s performance by results, not by physical presence. However, this type of management style brings forth issues of employee trust and empowerment – two key elements of a strong working relationship. Telework also creates the challenge of keeping workers, whether they are teleworking or not, to work as a team to achieve one common goal.
Before implementing telework and to help break down any cultural or procedural barriers, managers may need to initiate the following practices to maximize your effectiveness at supervising teleworkers:
• Maintain a sense of control even when people are out of sight
• Develop increased levels of trust and use trust as a purposeful tool
• Use technology for staying in touch with teleworkers
• Rethink and redesign the way certain jobs are performed
• Plan further in advance for meetings and other team activities
• Focus objectives and expectations on short-term, project-based goals
• Adopt location-independent ways of measuring performance and results
• Transition teamwork toward more electronic-based collaboration
For teleworking to be effective, managers must demonstrate trust and support to teleworkers. Most of the time, the people you trust will live up to that trust and respond to it by exceeding your expectations.
While entrusting your employees is vital to an effective telework program, employees who telework must also have trust in you. Some employees fear that not being visible may mean being
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