Remote work is here to stay for many businesses. Since it was so effective at cutting costs and providing social distancing during the pandemic, many firms have adopted it as a new norm. A strategic way to maximize remote work is to communicate with remote workers through periodic performance reviews.

How Remote Work Makes Worker Evaluation Difficult

“Dunbar’s number” theory suggests people have a limit of about 150 relationships they can manage. With online jobs, a company might have hundreds or thousands of remote workers. Dunbar’s number falls to 50 when it comes to remote or hybrid work. These dynamics present significant challenges for communication with remote workers.

Fairness in the Remote Performance Review

Modern employers that offer online or hybrid work must emphasize fairness and flexibility. Since labor shortages can occur when workers suffer job burnout, it’s crucial to show team members you care about their well-being.

Academic organizations have long used a work performance system called Organizational Network Analysis (ONA). This model allows for team members to ask each other questions and offer advice. It further allows for objective positive or negative commentary. The data-driven ONA approach reveals which players want to be major or minor contributors.

Steps Toward Meaningful Remote Worker Evaluations

Follow these steps on making evaluations worthwhile for the company to help determine the best talent:

1. Prepare each review by gathering relevant employee documents
2. Schedule the employee review and let them know what to expect
3. Take notes during the meeting
4. Advise the worker on improving performance
5. Use reality-based evidence to support your evaluation

At the end of the meeting find out the best time to meet with them on a regular basis to reiterate goals and measure progress.

Tips for Successful Remote Performance Evaluation

Here are major keys to making remote performance evaluations valuable for your operation:

• Avoid judgmental language
• Be clear in your communication
• Learn about each worker’s background
• Emphasize your company’s culture and core values

An emerging fresh approach to performance evaluation is the performance appraisal method. It involves tracking performance metrics on a regular basis. Offering monetary incentives for achieving goals is a reliable way to stimulate team spirit.

Summary

Managers can build a loyal and productive remote team by interacting with workers through performance reviews. The key is to view workers as assets. Successful team building means identifying and rewarding the talent that matches your company goals.

Forming a business partnership is one of the keys to building a successful entrepreneurship. Two teams working together can often generate more productive results for both groups. Here are essential insights to consider before partnering with another business.

Why a business partnership requires research

You should know a potential partner’s business reputation and financial history before entering an agreement. You can be held liable for a business partner’s actions, especially if you collaborate on manufacturing, distribution or promotion.

Questions to ask when considering business partners

Here are some questions to ask about the capabilities and reliability of potential business partners:

1. What are the owner’s qualifications? – Does the owner have expertise is their field or do they have limited knowledge? Another consideration is if they’re already part of a business network.
2. Can the company continue to operate without its owner? – If the owner were to die or become disabled, there should be a successor in place.
3. What are issues involved in partnering with a family business? – Find out which children of the owner, if any, plan to stay in the business. It’s also helpful to know if the owner has a life insurance policy that lists children as beneficiaries of the business.
4. How does the owner plan to retire? – An owner with a clear retirement plan is usually more financially stable to work with.

Keys to working cohesively with partners

It’s important for each partner to know their responsibilities and commit to them. Dividing responsibilities among the operations should be based on existing strengths and weaknesses. The ideal partnership allows both parties to participate in ways that help each other grow. There should be enjoyment and flexibility in the relationship to allow for creative collaboration and mistakes.

Short-term vs. long-term effects from a partnership

Part of building a successful entrepreneurship is assessing both the short-term and long-term effects of business decisions. Forming a partnership can impact your organization’s perception among the public, as well as financial obligations. Be clear on the roles and insurance responsibilities of each partner to avoid surprises.

Conclusion

Your entrepreneurship goals can accelerate with the help of a business partner. It’s wise to avoid rushing into a partnership and first learn the entity’s background, goals and financial outlook. Once you’ve concluded the candidate would be a great fit for your business with minimal risks, then you can unite and begin collaborating.

Successful business depends on strong leadership and workplace improvement. Management must aim for streamlining approaches to make the operation as efficient as possible. Without regular tracking of employee performance, a business can fall behind on its goals. Here’s why it pays off to make workplace efficiency a central theme.

Whether your team works at the office, remotely or in a hybrid work environment, strong leadership is part of what holds a group together. Maintaining a consistent workforce is crucial to business growth and saving costs on training. Here are effective ways to excel in leadership by supporting staffs that work in a remote or hybrid environment.

Clear and periodic internal communication strengthens a business. After the pandemic led to a tremendous wave of remote work from home, it’s important for employers to stay in close contact with remote workers. Strong communication is important for both office and remote workers to ensure your team is closely connected with your goals, vision and values.

The COVID-19 pandemic has created tremendous challenges for businesses that threaten their survival. But it has also taught that businesses can endure during a crisis by making the right adjustments. Here are insights for business leaders facing challenges triggered by the pandemic.

Becoming a manager for the first time is a transformational experience. It changes the way others look at you, as well as how you look at yourself. With new responsibilities that focus more around leadership and less around personal production, your first foray into management means you will have to guide your team and redefine personal relationships while you cope with emotions of your own and the people you now lead.

The long-term outcomes of the work you, as a manager or leader, are doing today rests with your company’s future leaders.

“Conflict is inevitable, combat is optional”- Max Lucado

Whether an established leader or an aspiring entrepreneur, you have led something at some point in your life and can and will lead again. You may have led a friend who needed advice, facilitated a carpool for your neighborhood, arranged a retirement party for a relative, or facilitated a community volunteer event.