Resources - guidance for incorporating (1) remote team member when full team is not remote

 I've had this situation many times.  I've always approached it based on the needs of the team and the people involved. I've had some introverted technical people that were helped by a monthly conf call, but other people who have been helped by a daily online chat room. Fortunately I've always had the needed infrastructure (such as conf calls or instant messaging) that can make this happen. Of course, there is no substitute for face-2-face, and if the funds are available this is part of the cost of doing business.

But at least in my cases, I've never been able to solve and forget the issue. I've always had to remain vigilant and almost daily encourage the thinking  "oh, remember, Lori is working on this issue, she really needs to be part of this conversation"  

We've got a valued senior employee who handed in his resignation last summer to move back to his island roots to raise the family.

A lot of his work for our clients was done by phone call or remote access to computers anyway, so we decided to see if remote working would be effective for six months. It was, and we made the appointment permanent in February this year.

Things we do to make it work:

• we've always had "morning prayers" - the daily huddle at 9.05am - and we patch him in on a speakerphone every day he's working so we're all still in the loop
• he has a phone on our internet-hosted VoIP system, so he's on an extension of our office phone system - our office take incoming calls and put them through to him in the usual way
• colleagues use Microsoft Lync a lot to quickly chat when collaborating on something
• he has remote access to all our data and all the files stay saved where they always have been saved - so no-one loses visibility of anything
• we all use our calendars and keep them religiously up-to-date so everyone knows what colleagues are doing - including blocking out time for the important-but-not-urgent
• he joins our weekly management meeting by speakerphone

Other things in our favour:

• he does work in our head office one week every month - his family have an apartment in our city only half-a-mile from the office so we pay the travel and the accommodation is free
• he did work for us for four years before moving away so he knows our work, our clients, and our culture and approach
• our clients are all great people and he was and is popular with them - they're all keen to help out a good guy and curious about life on an island far away - maybe they're jealous!

Having worked for us before moving away is probably the biggest factor in this being a successful move for all of us. I'm not sure how easy it would be to recruit someone new who would only get maybe a month of induction and training at head office before going away to work remotely.

We try to arrange monthly meetings to take place during his head office visit week. This is a struggle for everyone to fit everything into those few days and is quite a blight on everyone's diary; we need to work on the rhythm of these meetings somehow.

The most difficult thing is that he's now part-time, three days a week, so colleagues and clients can't always get to speak to him, but that's nothing to do with his work location.

Just our tuppence-worth and your mileage may vary, but remote working is working for us!

AHB

There are a few casts that I have found to be really helpful. They are how to manage at a distance. Include her in your other management processes (One on Ones, Staff Meetings, etc.). The difference is that you have to be cognizant that she will miss out on the office banter. The first time I managed from a distance, I didn't pay attention to the differences, and didn't make adjustments. I was not as successful as I could have been.
I am in a new role with a new team where we are all at a distance. I have to pay attention to have as much phone or face to face contact as possible to build the relationship (I am a High D, High I). When I call, I try to make room for small talk since that is not happening as much as when we are in person.
As far as the rest of the team including her - it will take additional effort and awareness on your part to ensure she is included. It is the same when you have a new person take over an area. After a period of time, you will find the rest of the organization will respond.

Good Luck. It is good...but different.

Scott

I use a daily virtual "Stand Up" call to facilitate efficient communications between peers and me their manager.

I set this up when I originally joined the company as a new manager to quickly allow me to build relationships with my employees (outside of OOO and staff calls) but more importantly to build better communications peer-to-peer. It was weird how no one seemed to talk to each other, even those who sat next to each other. Now the synergies we have gained from the daily calls have increased our efficiency, team work and problem resolution effectiveness.

I use a standard agenda and set the call for 15 mins. On a quarterly basis I validate the need for the daily call by asking if the team still finds value in it and I consistently receive feedback that it is absolutely needed and they appreciate the forum.

Agenda:
• Issues/Roadblocks
• Successes
• Feedback/Infoshare/How do I questions
• I need help from Manager on…

One last note... because of the nature of work my team does, we are a constant point of facilitation of short term deliverables. Therefore I have provided an open invite to key stakeholders from other teams to our Daily Stand Up in case they need to quickly communicate to my team. So maybe once a week we have another team's lead join and we can work through the need real time.

JB