The Challenges of Managing Remote Workers

​With much of the workforce doing their jobs from home right now, managers are becoming keenly aware of the challenges related to overseeing employees remotely. Overcoming these challenges is essential for maintaining existing revenue streams and improving future profitability. Leadership that understands how to manage the complexities of a distanced workforce effectively will be more successful than those that try to adapt in-house techniques for remote workers.  

Technology Requirements
In an ideal world, every employee would use the same technology with a high level of competence to make tech issues obsolete. However, the reality when managing a remote workforce is that everyone will come to the table with different experience levels, skillsets, needs, and platform familiarity. The challenge is fitting these pieces together into a robust framework to facilitate secure, efficient, scalable work.

Listening to employees to find out what they need to be productive and what kinds of questions or concerns they have is crucial in overcoming technology challenges. This information can then be used for technology decisions when implementing new software and upgrading existing platforms. 

Timely Communication
Working from home creates more freedom for employees, often leading to more flexible schedules. This shift can make timely communication and meeting project deadlines more difficult if not managed proactively. Integrating the right technology can facilitate better communication while creating company-wide or team-specific policies that can guide expectations about when employees should be reachable. Additionally, if specific communication methods are not suitable for your business due to regulatory requirements or security needs, a formal policy can ensure employees are aware of these limitations ahead of time to avoid issues before they arise.
 
Performance Evaluation
Monitoring employee contributions is more difficult with remote employees because managers cannot necessarily “see” their inputs in the same way that they would have in the office. Furthermore, management may need to use different criteria to evaluate employees once they are remote because their jobs may have changed with the switch. 

However, as metrics change, attitudes need to change also. An Engagedly article summarizes, “Trust your remote employees and exhibit the trust when you talk to them. Most employers feel that remote employees do not dedicate themselves to work completely. This mindset cannot help you build a team spirit.” Provide a framework to define expectations, and then empower employees by giving them the flexibility and freedom to do their best work. 

Accounting Controls
When employees are spread out, organizations tend to consolidate functions to improve efficiency, but in the case of accounting controls, that can be a dangerous decision. 
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Fraud risk is higher when it can be done in a “faceless” environment (like through an online bank transfer instead of taking money from a cash register drawer) and when employees do not think someone is watching. Both of these criteria are met in a remote environment, putting employers in an, especially vulnerable position. Mitigate this risk by following financial best practices: 

• Do not give employees too much autonomy. Always maintain a strict separation of duties when employees are working remotely. If your company does not have enough employees to segregate these duties, consider hiring an accounting firm to oversee financial processes. 
• Do not let technology challenges result in relaxed accounting system access controls. Securely save passwords and ensure every employee has a unique login to each financial system. 
• Complete physical asset audits on a regular schedule, even if it requires spending money to bring remote employees in to conduct audits.
• Maintain standardized documentation around financial aspects such as invoices, materials requests, reimbursements, and budgets.

When an organization is new to managing an offsite workforce, controls can be inadvertently relaxed, weakened, or eliminated, which makes outsourcing accounting functions to a reputable company even more important to reduce errors and keep fraud risk low. Ask for help from a professional if you need it! 

Learn more about the payroll implications of employing remote workers to determine if you’re missing anything critical from a bookkeeping perspective.