A recent survey of IT professionals shows that CIOs who manage remote workers are challenged, above all other factors, with keeping lines of communication open and effective between themselves and the employees they supervise.
A Robert Half Technology (News - Alert) survey of CIOs in the U.S. showed that nearly one-third, 30 percent, of respondents said their greatest challenge in managing remote workers was the lack of face time they had with such employees. They noted that workplace collaboration suffered as a result of their being unable to connect with workers in person. The challenge of communication arose as the clear leader concerning problems with remote work compared with only 22 percent of respondents indicating that their greatest challenge was either productivity, with a lack of insight into work operations, or technology, with making sure that remote workers have access to business information. John Reed, senior executive director of Robert Half Technology, commented on the survey's findings.
"As remote work arrangements become increasingly popular, managers are often concerned that camaraderie and collaboration could suffer due to lack of regular, in-person interaction," Reed said. "Even senior executives in a technology-forward department like IT can feel disconnected from remote teams because of limited face time with staff and lack of visibility into how work is being accomplished."
A blog post at CollegeRecruiter.com suggests that CIOs can manage their remote teams more effectively by employing a range of tactics. This can include specific check-ins that CIOs mandate, such as daily phone calls or emails that concern business projects; utilizing tools such as teleconferencing and online meeting software to make sure that remote employees are all on the same page; scheduling in-person meetings, so CIOs can actually get the face time they desire; and encouragement from CIOs to remote employees that urges them to separate personal and work events in order to remain productive in both.
AT Conferencing, a company that offers conference call services, provides a reservationless conference call program that seeks to provide CIOs and remote employees with the ability to communicate in an effective manner. The conferencing call services provider allows users complete calls without having to schedule them in advance; and it can sync with Microsoft (News - Alert) Outlook to provide users with reminders of calls they have scheduled. It is also able to record conversations and create call transcriptions that may be useful for call analysis at later dates.
Offerings with that sort of functionality can do wonders for CIOs that have a hard time keeping a handle on employees that operate mostly away from the office. It can keep managers and employees connected in ways that are simple but effective, and it can help provide managers with the peace of mind that their remote workers are accomplishing their tasks and remaining in line with overall business goals and objectives.
Edited by Maurice Nagle