Being an Effective E-Manager

‘E-Manager’ is a term which has been coined over recent years to reflect the increasing trend of having to manage a workforce who have been able to take advantage of technological advancements in IT and who are now Working From Home or other places of their choosing and in some instances, the members of a ‘team’ could be based in different places all over the world. At the same time, they all still belong to the same company and, whilst they might have a very autonomous role to perform, they are all, collectively, still very much part of a team and as such, still need to be managed.

Killing the Myth of Remote Management Being a ‘New Thing’

To some members of the ‘old school’, they might seem horrified that workers are allowed to work in this way. They might point to the fact that as these workers are working remotely, who’s keeping an eye on them and how can a company be sure that they’re getting the job done? The truth is that the concept of ‘remote management’ is hardly new. It’s more a matter of geographical perception than anything else.

For example, for years, workers have been managed remotely in a number of professions – truck drivers, field sales, cleaners and caterers to name but a few, whilst managers are often in meetings for much of the day or are out themselves travelling between offices or factories, so the practice of leaving staff to get on with things has been accepted for many years. The only difference now being that via telecommunications and IT, your workforce doesn’t all have to be together in the same office. They can be situated anywhere and yet still be linked together at the same time.

Being an Effective E-Manager

These days, IT and Telecommunications tools have enabled managers to do a number of things which would only have previously been possible in an office-based environment by handing bits of paper back and forth and through face-to-face conversations. Record keeping and monitoring are just two of the most obvious examples but both supervision and even motivational techniques can be carried out by an e-manager towards his workforce either collectively or on a one-to-one basis via the use of webcams and video teleconferences even if they are on opposite sides of the world.

Managing skills are still crucial, however, and an effective e-manager will maintain a good degree of personal contact with his team encouraging regular dialogue with all his workers and for his workers to engage in that practice with colleagues too. This is even more important for those workers who might find working remotely and on their own quite daunting and who miss the social contact which a conventional working environment affords them. A good e-manager will also avoid the tendency to solely rely on all the technology that’s now evolved in IT and will also rely heavily on the good old fashioned telephone. Not that, that hasn’t evolved too but the principle being that it’s still good to talk and sometimes quicker than sending an e-mail.

There’s Still Room for Face-to-Face Contact

Managers and teams who operate in this way aren’t, for the most part, faceless names simply performing their role away from the office. Face-to-face interaction still takes place but an effective e-manager knows how to render this effective. For example, it simply makes no point for a worker to drive a 20 mile round trip to the office just to pick up his work schedule for the next month – that can be sent over a network. But an e-manager will call together his team in person from time to time to hold Team Building Exercises, perhaps including ‘away-days’ playing paint ball or going ten pin bowling for example. They might also be called in for Appraisals and to attend other special events.

An important feature of being a good e-manager, therefore, is to distinguish and separate those areas where face-to-face meetings are the best option as opposed to the many aspects of work which can be conducted just as effectively, if not more so, through the use of IT and telephony systems.

Other Issues

An effective e-manager will also understand the importance of health and safety issues. For example, if you’re working at a work station at the office with all of the health and safety implications that entails, it’s important to recognise that this is equally as significant when using a work station at home. Illness has no concept of where a person works so a good e-manager will also know what all of his team are up to at any given time and will ensure he has enough coverage on the network should somebody be off work sick. He’ll also make sure that remote workers get the same pay and conditions as any office based staff with the same access to training, promotion and career development.

In the 21st century, more and more companies are waking up to see the vast potential in using a remote work force where it is possible to do so and in embracing that, so there will be an increasing need for skilled e-managers to tie that all together to produce a skilled, remote workforce all working towards a common team goal, wherever they may be located in the world.