Motivating Today’s Employees: When the Carrot Can’t Always Be Cash

I have been interested in remote work for a number of years. Working in corporate communications while also doing freelance writing for a number of years when a company I was working for was going through a merger and planning to relocate its headquarters I thought: “why couldn’t I work for them—or some other company—remotely?”

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Best Practices for Managing Remotely (You Already Know These…)

Man Working From Home Having Online Group Videoconference On Laptop

Over the past several months I’ve been very interested, even excited, to see how well the forced experiment with remote work has evolved. Since 2008 I’ve been working remotely. Even prior to that, I had several writing clients that I worked remotely for; most I’ve never met. Continue reading “Best Practices for Managing Remotely (You Already Know These…)”

Managing Remote Staff: The Two Most Important Things You Need to Know

In March as thousands of companies around the country had to send people home to work, the idea of telecommuting – or remote work – firmly took hold. Since then, as many companies and individuals have found, remote work can work! In fact, there are studies that indicate that employees working from home can actually be more productive, and more satisfied with their jobs, than employees working in traditional work settings.

I’ve been interested in telecommuting – or what is more commonly these days referred to as remote work – for many years now. My interest prompted me to research and write a book on telecommuting in 1991. Having worked as a freelance business journalist for a long time, while also employed full-time as director of corporate communications in the education, energy, and healthcare industries, I had worked remotely with a variety of editors for many years. Why couldn’t I also work remotely as a corporate communications director for companies in other locations? Continue reading “Managing Remote Staff: The Two Most Important Things You Need to Know”

How To Demonstrate Your Productivity When Working Remotely

I’ve been thinking a lot about remote work lately. Not only because of the coronavirus, and not only because I’ve been working from home since 2008, but because my new book “Managing Remote Staff: Capitalize on Work-from-Home Productivity” was released by Self-Counsel Press, a publisher I’ve written a number of books for.

I received a lot of input for the book from both those who manage remote staff and those who work remotely. Some have been doing this for a number of years; others only since the pandemic emerged and changed the work landscape forever. Companies have historically been hesitant to allow employees to work from locations other than their official workplaces. This is true for a variety of reasons, many revolving around trust, concerns about communication, and the ubiquitous concern managers have of being able to successfully manage employees when they are “out of sight, out of mind.”

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Setting Boundaries When Working From Home

Working from home is top-of-mind for many people these days. The COVID-19 pandemic resulted in innumerable businesses sending innumerable employees home to work to keep them safe and isolated from others. Working from home has long been top-of-mind for us–we’ve been a virtual business since 2008. So from a workday standpoint, the virus hasn’t created that much disruption for us. It has created some new opportunities, though.

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