Why your manager expect more in remote work
This article will discuss factors involving managers demanding more from their employees, as the global epidemic continuous, which has infected around third-quarter of a million people, and around twenty thousand of them died, The virus still has half a million active cases and it is increasing day by day.
The factors discussed in this article are truly based on experiences of people, companies and personal ideas. It is never targeted to any organization or people.
I am a professional software engineer working as a full time in a bus fleet management company based in Abu Dhabi.
It has become very common that due to corona virus spreading all over the world, companies in USA, Japan, China, India and Europe started working remotely. As the virus continued, the practice of work from home became mandatory in most parts of the world.
Remote work was already common in most parts of the world, so people and companies were already familiar with tools and ways for productive and combined work, irrespective of the place teams sit. For instance teams working in China, India and Japan for most global tech giants like Microsoft are already practicing the same way of work. Automobile and mechatronics companies based in USA and Europe have also manufacturing plants in both China and Japan. Similarly, Google has a development team in Singapore, also has a team in India too.
World is familiar with creating dependencies among individuals and teams, some distributing among managers at available locality. With vast advancement in communication and tracking channels, for every standardized working pattern of development and manufacturing, work from remote locations has become quite flexible and adoptable.
Why are managers in Middle East lack to monitor remote work
Managers are the people who normally play a role of bridge between workers and business people. In other terms managers are the people who are paid higher to distribute, monitor and track work among workers.
The expected result from the workforce is actually a very challenging task for moniters. A great piece of planning and following a specified development lifecycle which must be perfect for the user needs, can only make life easy.
Unfortunately most of managers in the Middle East do not follow the right pattern for managing their development process. They feel more pressure of getting fired, which ultimately makes them monsters for the people who they control.
Unlikely development teams in India, China, Europe and America, stay more relaxed, and this is only because their managers believe in easing and relaxation. They play the role of mountains, who stay strong on their own feet with courage and never let people on one side to know what is on the other side.
Things can only become stable if we stop believing that enforcement can be the only option. If we start thinking positive, it will help us achieve our goals.
Communications, support and trust can only help in successfully managing remote teams.
Here are seven tips which can help in monitoring people reporting you with their remote presence.
- Have a daily check-In or daily standup meeting on any digital tool.
- Communicate a lot, with every member of your team. Let him speak openly.
- Take advantage of technology, use tools for tracking and communicating.
- Manage expectations, in terms of people globally getting affected. People are scared due to this epidemic. Specially in Middle East people live without their families. So slow down your push.
- Focus on outcomes, not activity. Please try not to involve deeply. Focus on what you want, rather thinking too much about either their working routine or pattern.
- Resource your team with the required things. They need tools like laptops, software, mobile devices, or even a high-speed internet connection.
- Be flexible, understand that, especially in the current environment, your team has a lot going on. That's not an excuse for not getting things done, but it is a reason to reconsider what productivity really means. Punching a clock for eight hours is out.
NOTE: This is truly based on personal ideas and experiences. It is never referred to any organization or people.