Tips On How To Manage Mobile Workforce Of Your Business

The world is evolving at an unprecedented pace, and businesses are using it as an opportunity to become more productive and efficient. Companies are hiring individuals from across the globe to encourage innovations and diversity. It has become a familiar concept for businesses to deal with a mobile workforce, making operations less location-bound.

The motivation of employees in a mobile workforce is essential because they make your company more adaptable to change. They also bring in talent, skills, and capabilities to make business processes more efficient. Marketers, delivery workers, field service technicians, field sales representatives, traveling consultants, and other mobile workers are highly conducive to business success. They help increase sales and are also one of the primary drivers behind customer satisfaction. However, if you do not manage them indecently, motivation levels will decrease. As a result, you’ll lose money in lost productivity and profitability. It will also lead to labor turnover, leading to a bad reputation for your company.

But it can be a challenge to discipline, control, and train them when they’re not physically present. It requires more than just basic human resource management techniques. So, here are some modern-day solutions and tips on how to manage your business’s mobile workforce.

1. Provide must-haves

Your remote workers require additional amenities than regular employees. As their employer, you are responsible for catering to them justly. You are liable to provide proper housing, work equipment, and travel allowances to them. After a difficult day at work, your workers deserve to go and rest somewhere. The most comfortable option would be man camp trailers. They do have a set-up cost but are a practical choice for employees’ motivation. It lets your worker stay on-site or near it, even off work, making them more contented and satisfied with living conditions.

To keep them dedicated and focused on work, provide them with work laptops with stable internet connections. It will allow them to pay attention to work. If they can work from their phones, ensure they have the latest devices with good data packages. Providing such amenities improves productivity and time management in your workers while also making them loyal to the company.

2. Regular video conferencing

Managers can use the latest tech and stay connected to their workforce anytime and anywhere around the world. These mobile technologies help them streamline and simplify routine activities for their employees. Hence, emailing and online chats are also great ways to notify your remote staff about a specific project or changes in operational policies.

But, these non-verbal ways of communication lack realism and keeps you unaware of their understanding, emotions, and satisfaction. So, one of the best alternates of conversing with them is through video conferencing, as it allows you to see the expressions of your workers and gauge their reactions. It creates empathy and improves the working relationship as it builds more trust and understanding. It’s an easy and effective way to improve time management, ensure inclusiveness and prioritize teamwork. Video calling applications like Zoom, Google Meet, Google Hangouts, Skype, or Whatsapp Video Calls are free, user-friendly, and available worldwide. So you can try holding a video conference regularly through them and ensure productivity.

3. Manage but don’t micro-manage

Control and monitoring are necessary for secure and truthful mobile workforce management. Companies use high-tech systems and online time-tracking applications to ensure that their staff is always present for duty, even without a supervisor. These tracking systems have GPS, which allows the manager to view the location of their mobile employees with timestamps. They can quickly check their movements and attendance in real-time. It enables them to analyze their performance by assessing their participation or confronting them for troubling performance.

However, such close supervision can bind them to work in unpleasant ways, resulting in a bad work attitude. It would be better if you do not distract your workers by unnecessary calling to check or repeatedly telling them to complete a task. It would stress them out, and your employees would feel like you don’t trust them with the work. Moreover, it is essential to create and respect some boundaries. To rest your qualms, you can create task sheets and set goals for them to complete on time. Or, you can pay regular surprise visits to see, first-hand, how they are working. In truth, allowing them to work at their own pace would give them a chance to grow and explore, which will result in better productivity.

4. Improve performance management

It is not always possible to rely on one person’s judgment for performance management system. Some organizations develop tools to help them manage and improve it. The initial investment can be costly, but it allows them to set goals, assess performance, reward or reinforce, and give them feedback. You could also do it through customer surveys – for instance, ask customers from different areas about how they find your salespeople and delivery personnel. You could also create an online survey through Google Forms or use social media to talk to them one-on-one.

Although, investing in a performance management tool will help you overcome the challenge of understanding your mobile workforce. It will also enable you to track and record your employees’ activities. These records are helpful in employee evaluation, and with such data, you can efficiently address them if they make a mistake. Performance management is also essential in employee motivation because you owe them some appreciation and relevant rewards for efficiently completing the task.

Conclusion

Like in any other scenario, relationship management is the key to a healthy and stable business environment for managing remote employees. Your mobile workforce deserves just as much two-way communication and effective direction as your on-site workers. It would help if you built a rapport with them, understanding the crucial differences to keep them devoted to working. For instance, understand that their public holidays may differ from yours and schedule an off for them. These small acts help them realize their value in the company, which motivates them. Once they recognize your good intentions, they will be working with more positive behavior.