By: Milour Allen De Leon
If you are reading this, I am sure you have hired your first offsite professional or probably thinking of hiring one. Hiring an offsite professional is a great option for business owners and entrepreneurs. Offsite professionals are great as they come with different skill set and capabilities. They can certainly help you with a variety of tasks and can adjust based on your needs.
Offsite professionals are like office employees too, the only difference is that they work remotely. As their employer, you will be responsible in delegating tasks and managing them. Remote workers are human beings, so it is important to build that harmonious working relationship. The way you manage your worker will also affect how they perform in your company. In this blog post, we will share some tips on how you can successfully manage your first offsite professional.
· Offsite Professionals Are Human Beings Too – Just because you don’t see them in the day-to-day operations, it doesn’t mean they are robots. Offsite professionals are human beings too who have feelings, and can empathize. Treat your offsite professional just like how you would treat your onsite staffs. These offsite professionals also have personal stuff they deal with and just like all human beings, they make mistakes too. If their work performance declines, reach out to them and see how you can help them improve their productivity. Recognize their challenges, show care for their well-being, and give compliments. These simple things will go a long way, and your offsite professionals will open up more to you with suggestions and ideas. Treat them the way you would like to be treated.
· Build Trust – I know it’s difficult to trust someone you haven’t even met in person and building trust will develop overtime. Trust is a very important aspect in your working relationship with your offsite professional. If the feel like you trust them, they will perform well. Your offsite professional will feel more empowered and motivated to work. Open communication is key, be available by responding to them, and provide the necessary tools they need for learning. Show these efforts from day one and be consistent.
· Provide Constructive Feedback – Understand that your offsite professional is not perfect and will commit mistakes. In this case, you have to help them by providing performance feedback. Imagine not getting feedback from your bosses, and wonder what needs to be worked on? It’s the same thing with you offsite professionals. When you give them constructive feedback, this allows them to make corrections, and changes on a certain task. Provide positive feedback, followed by things that they need to work on. Always acknowledge the things that they did really well as this boosts their confidence.
· Daily Work Reports or Daily Check Ins – It can be challenging to know what your offsite professional is working on currently. Make it a practice for your offsite professional to send you daily updates or reports on things they completed for the day. By this, you would be able to see things they have accomplished for the day, and tasks that need to be worked on more. The daily work reports will allow you to assess their progress and provide training when necessary.
· Communication is Key – Have a platform for you and your offsite professional where you can communicate easily. For some business owners, they would prefer email, for some text messages or calls work. This interaction is important so that you would know you are on the same page with your offsite professional. If you don’t communicate with your offsite professional, they would feel that they are on their own and that you don’t care. Take note, this does not mean that you have to micromanage your offsite professional, but being not that hands on or visible won’t help them progress in their role.
· Respect the Cultural Differences – Acknowledge the cultural differences. There may be holidays in their location that are not recognized in the US. Pay attention and respect the cultural differences. Also learn about news in their location, it could be about the pandemic, weather or what not. For Filipino offsite professionals, their country is mostly hit by strong typhoons yearly and would sometimes experience power outage due to the weather.
Keep in mind that these tips will help you successfully manage your offsite professional. Carefully managing your offsite professional is important in their progress and performance. Invest in your offsite professional, and they will treat your company like their own. The more you put into managing your offsite worker, the more you get in return.
