6 Best Practices for Managing Nonprofit Talent in the Remote Work Revolution
We are not in normal times. Covid19 has disrupted every industry, and the nonprofit sector isn’t spared. From the look of things, even after the pandemic, we are not guaranteed to return to the “normal” that we all knew. While the pandemic forced many institutions to work from home or remote, it also served as the largest remote work experiment. For many in the nonprofit sector, things are about to change as remote work becomes the default, and one of the biggest areas that will be disrupted by this new way of working is how to manage remote workers – be it paid or volunteers.
The question is, how do you manage nonprofit talent in a revolution that wants to work from anywhere? Right from hiring to managing employees and working with volunteers, there’s a lot to be done. We take you through the ins and outs of what it takes to succeed in the remote work revolution as a nonprofit, especially when it comes to learning how to manage remote workers.
Equip your organization and your employees
From communication to collaborative working and file sharing, there are many tools that drive work in the remote work environment. Managing nonprofit talent in such an atmosphere requires nonprofits to adopt and use any tool that will make the organization work easier. Nonprofits should also ensure that, aside from the organizational tools, employees may need specific tools to do their work easily. There are many remote work tools out there to make your work easier, including Slack, Microsoft Teams, and Rocket Chat for text-based communication and Zoom, Microsoft Teams, and many others for video calls. Some tools are geared towards giving employees options for time offs and more. Your choice of tools also goes a long way to affect your nonprofit and should be done carefully.
Don’t leave the work to only tools
As outlined above, tools are undoubtedly our friends when it comes to achieving our remote work goals. As a nonprofit having to deal with remote teams all of a sudden, you can’t avoid these tools. One thing that nonprofits may make mistakes with, which I have seen happening, is to think that once there are tools, problems will solve themselves automatically. The tools we use for remote work are only there to help us get the work done. Nonprofits should understand that these tools aren’t replacements for the human touch in every team that’s needed to make communication work, to build trust, and to motivate people to keep working for the organization. Building nonprofit talent in the remote work revolution requires more human involvement just as tools.
Champion an open communication system
The long letters and the bureaucratic processes that employees have to go through in many legacy organizations, some nonprofits included, can be a discomfort in a remote work environment, and a disadvantage to managing nonprofit talent. Those long processes won’t work when people are working from different locations. To succeed as a nonprofit in the remote work revolution, you need to institute and drive an open communication system were employee requests are attended to as soon as possible even if the requests are sent through slack. Open communication does not only make things move faster, it builds a sense of belongings, an important remote work feature that’s needed to make sure employees don’t feel lonely.
Measure performance more on outcomes
When working in the same physical space, being present in the office along can mean being productive – and so some employees may not work throughout the day, but because they’re present, noting sows they aren’t working. This cannot be taken to the remote work environment because it will ruin productivity for the organization and make employees uncomfortable. Remote employees should be measured more on the outcomes, which can be done when your nonprofit sets goals, objectives, KPIs, and deadlines. You should care more about their delivery and less about how they were able to deliver it, so far as it meets the metrics set.
Build trust among employees and management
Trust is one of the most important assets needed to make a remote team successful. Managers need to trust their remote employees – that they’re adults and can get work done. That remote employees can manage their schedule and seek help when needed. This trust should be given first by nonprofit managers. In turn, employees will trust managers and make sure they deliver on their goals, at all times. Trust creates harmony between employees and managers in a remote work environment and prevents managers from micromanaging every step of employees.
Encourage team building activities
In remote teams, one of the deadliest things is boredom or when remote employees feel isolated. It’s a big productivity killer. One way to solve this is to encourage team building activities such as online games, having meals on video calls, and participating in other entertaining activities that are not about work. Ting is, you can’t leave the team to their own fate and assume that they will engage in these activities themselves. Nonprofit managers employing remote talent to take the step not just to provide the necessary tools for team building, but to be involved themselves to make sure that employees pick these activities up along the line. As the saying goes, ‘leaders should lead by example’.
Key Takeaways In Managing Nonprofit Talent
The world of work after Covid-19 will never be the same. More and more employees are beginning to like working from home. And for many nonprofits were work doesn’t necessarily have to be done in-office, there are many opportunities to cut down on the cost of office rent. This will spark a new form of nonprofit workers from around the world, a trend that is already prevalent in the volunteer world. In that remote work revolution, the principles that worked in the office won’t help much. The tips provided above will guide any nonprofit to make great decisions when it comes to learning how to manage remote workers and volunteers. To get the right communication and collaboration tools, feel free to reach out to IndieTech Solutions any time.