Submitted by michaelpoley on
in
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2 of my 6 directs are remote, and I struggle to give feedback to them, positive or negative. Because they are remote, I don't have opportunities to interact with them in-person or to see them work. For the other 4 directs it's easy! I interact with them, and people on other teams tell me about the great things that they see them doing.
To understand where I am, I am trying to give at least 2 pieces of positive feedback, every week, to each of my direct reports. I'm using the feedback methods described in the Manager Tools podcasts on feedback.
For the 2 remote directs, I can give them feedback based on the work that I see them turn in, but some of the projects that they work on have such long timelines that it doesn't give me a lot of material to give them feedback on.
Should I ask their coworkers, who DO need to communicate with them on a more frequent basis about what these 2 coworkers are up to - or if they are doing awesome things that I'm not aware of?
How would you handle this? I don't want to 'invent' positive feedback to give to my remote team members, but I definitely want them to be engaged and have a sense of how they're doing. Unfortunately, I don't feel like I do have a sense of how they're doing - beyond the work that they produce.