How do you hold your employees accountable? Accountability best practices apply just as well when folks are working remotely as when they’re in the office.
Here are some key things to remember:
- Make sure to define what success looks like. Is it solving a problem? Creating something new? Writing a business plan? How much leeway does the employee have in terms of what the result looks like?
- Make sure the goal contains all of the “SMART” criteria – it’s specific, measurable, attainable, rewarding and has a time-specific deliverable date
- Delegating or assigning work isn’t the same as abdicating. The manager still owns responsibility for the deliverable. Milestones and regular check-ins should be established up front to make sure the project remains on track.
- When folks are at different locations, set up more frequent check-ins. Employees are more likely to run into roadblocks or have more difficulty accessing resources if they don’t have existing relationships and can’t drop by someone’s office. That’s when the manager needs to provide support.
Hope that helps!
