Help Your Staff Grow, Even from Afar

We’ve written before on strategies and practices that can make you a better remote manager. Recently, we read this piece from BNET discussing the role of the remote manager as it pertains to developing employees’ potential.

Author Wayne Turmel writes, “It would be foolish to suggest that the manager is solely responsible for all the learning a worker has to do, but we do have a unique and powerful impact on the growth of our team, especially with remote employees.”

This really underscores what is true of every organization – interpersonal skills are critical to strengthening your team. Although more employees and managers alike are working remotely via technologies such as video conferencing and social platforms, the personal connection is what ties a team together.

No doubt that creating such relationships is getting more difficult as the office expands to more remote locations… however, it’s not impossible, and Turmel hits some key points on how to maintain a managerial role that will strengthen your team by encouraging employee growth.

He aptly notes that managers are the biggest reason employees stay or leave an organization. Managers also influence how employees guide themselves because managers know the organization, provide crucial feedback and have a larger view of the organization and team as a whole.

The most important point he makes is that managers “are the biggest influence on whether skills get transferred and reinforced.” So, if you want your employees to learn new skills to expand their expertise, you need to make a concerted effort to lead them and reinforce those ideals, no matter if you sit in the same office or work remotely.