5. Hone Management Skills for Telecommuting

Telecommuting is a true test of a manager's skill. It's hard enough to measure employee output when the individual is in the office; now supervisors need to add the complexity of doing it from a distance. And not every manager possesses the necessary skills for keeping tabs on telecommuters.

Elizabeth Ross, director of technology projects execution at AMEC Earth & Environmental, has telecommuted and managed telecommuters. She sees a direct relationship between the strength of a manager and the telecommuting experience. "Managers who know how to manage resources, subcontractors, and the like, can make the situation work, sometimes exceptionally," she says. "Managers who don't communicate well, [who] don't know how to manage their own time well, and so on, don't get around to checking in or managing the telecommuter very well — if at all."

It's that latter kind of manager (for example, the inept manager) who's typically the least supportive of telecommuting, according to Ross, because the work arrangement highlights the manager's weaknesses and requires him or her to improve or change his or her style. For that reason, user experience consultant Albers suggests that only managers "who have demonstrated extraordinary organization and leadership abilities" should be allowed to manage telecommuters.

Across the board, telecommuters agree that managers should focus on results. Focus on managing the work rather than the workers, they say. It's important for managers who supervise telecommuters to clearly communicate a well-organized concept of tasks and target deadlines and their interdependencies. That is, don't just give the teleworker an assignment and due date; make sure he knows its context in the project and where this task fits in its critical path.

Focusing on output is not simply a matter of looking for people who fail to produce. It means being attuned to how people get work done. For example, if a telecommuter finishes a project before the deadline, the employee's manager should find out if the employee is ready to start on a new task or if she just spent a lot of time up front to have a couple of days free to do something else. Someone who always meets deadlines early is obviously capable of working faster, a fact that can be used in planning (and rewarded with additional compensation to acknowledge her capability). By contrast, if someone is missing deadlines, the manager needs to identify the root cause of the problem; don't just assume employee incompetence.