What is remote management?

Distance management is the art of managing employees who are not in the same place as the manager. The fact that you are not in the same place presents the manager with different challenges than when you are physically in the same place. Many start by focusing on the technical challenges, but typically it is the social relationships that are challenged.

Social relationships are more difficult at a distance

One thing that is often overlooked by new distance managers is the importance of the social relationships that need to be present in a team in order for it to perform at a high level.

In a traditional team that sits close to each other and where there is an opportunity to bump into each other at the coffee machine, it is easier to find a solution.

As a leader of a virtual team, this is more difficult. First, the above random encounters are not possible. You sit in each of your cities or countries, and every meeting must be planned. In addition, daily communication is also a greater challenge. Because if you do most of your communication via chat or e-mail, then you don't have the physical signs, such as body language, attitude and tone of voice, to rely on when you need to understand each other.

For the virtual employee, the freedom, peace of mind, balance between work life and free time, which is often the reason for remote work, comes with a price.

In addition to being prepared for the fact that your colleagues may suspect that you are not working hard (enough), people who work alone and physically cut off from the rest of the organization often experience a feeling of isolation.

Is there a difference between virtual management and distance management?

No, it's not there. Remote management is an older term, while virtual management is a term that is used more and more.

Remote management and virtual management are basically two words that are used for the same thing: that managers manage employees who are not sitting in the same place as the manager.

Remote management previously meant that a company had employees geographically dispersed. Perhaps a Danish company had an employee located in both Denmark, Germany and China. In other words, a geographically distributed organization.

Distance management during Corona

Today, it is very common - and especially with the Covid-19 situation in mind - for employees to work from home.

But it actually doesn't make much difference if your employees are spread over several continents or if they sit on different floors. The practice and skills required are, for you as a manager, the same.

Today, virtual management is a more accurate term, as management takes place to a large extent using digital tools such as video meetings, e-mail and chats.

In this article, we therefore use the two concepts for the same thing.

Challenges of distance management

Research shows that if an employee sits at home and works more than two and a half days a week, the risk of not only feeling isolated increases, but social relationships also come under pressure.

And the research is supported by studies that the Leaders have carried out. In 2015, they asked 3,061 managers, all of whom are responsible for remote employees or managers, what challenges they experience with remote management. In order of priority, they mention:

• Create a team culture across locations
• Have confidence that the employees solve their work tasks independently
• Define clear goals, tasks and areas of responsibility
• Build trust in yourself as a leader
• Ensure precise guidelines, delegation of tasks, clear communication, reporting, documentation and control
• Reduce risk of conflicts and retail management

These answers are correct, according to Henrik Holt Larsen, who discusses the study here well in line with the results that research in the field has given.

It shows that social isolation, one great need for mutual trust and virtual communication limitations are the biggest challenges with distance management.

Distance management makes greater demands on the manager

The survey also examined what challenges the managers in the survey believe the employees who refer to them experience, and here we see the same themes repeated.

• They must take on greater independent responsibility and make more decisions on their own
• They place greater demands on trust in their manager
• The manager is less available for sparring
• It is more difficult for them to get recognition and make visible the results of their work
• They feel more insecure in relation to work tasks and responsibilities

Again, it is social relationships and communication that weigh heaviest in their consciousness. As a manager, you must of course take into account the challenges your employees experience. It makes greater demands on your skills as a manager, to engage and keep your employees happy.

Important areas of action

There are great advantages to remote management, but it is also a form of management that presents both managers and employees with great challenges. In the article, Holt Larsen provides a checklist of concrete areas of action that you as a manager should be aware of and, not least, master:

Better communication

• Soberly assess which work and which employees are suitable for virtual work – and which/who are not.
• Set norms and establish ambition/expectation level regarding how much virtual communication there should be.
• Establish concrete rules and procedures for the virtual work and the communication about it: quality standards, deadlines, planning and reporting systems, evaluation, etc.
• Be a role model for how communication in the team should take place, including which "social psychological rules of the road" apply.
• Be aware of both intended and unintended means in virtual communication, for example language used in emails, tone of voice on the phone, etc.

Strengthen the social

• Consciously work on how you and your employees can be compensated for the inevitable loss of social network, contact and intimacy in remote management.
• Exude and demand trust – to/from you and to your employees.
• Establish a structure for physical meetings when it is possible and desirable to meet face-to-face.

Pay attention to small signals

• Optimize your management style as a consequence of the fact that virtual employees often want autonomy, but at the same time can and will be involved in the management processes.
• Pay attention to (even the most discreet and indistinct) signals that employees are unhappy or not performing ("delivering the goods"), but avoid suffocating them in an unfortunate cocktail of care and close-management/monitoring.