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4 Steps to Manage Remote Workers

A Gartner, Inc. survey of 229 HR leaders on April 2 revealed that nearly 50% of organizations reported 81% or more of their employees are working remotely during the coronavirus pandemic. Another 15% of those surveyed said 61-80% of employees are working remotely at this time. The Gartner survey showed that many workers are planning to work remotely more often in the future.

“While 30% of employees surveyed worked remotely at least part of the time before the pandemic, Gartner analysis reveals that post-pandemic, 41% of employees are likely to work remotely at least some of the time,” said Brian Kropp, Chief of Research for the Gartner HR practice. “Ultimately, the COVID-19 pandemic has many employees planning to work in a way that they hadn’t previously considered.”

In the current environment, many employees are working remotely for the first time and are now doing it full-time. In tandem, managers are having to direct remote employees and teams, and many of them have never managed remote workers.

To help organizations manage remote talent during the COVID-19 pandemic, Gartner recommends four steps:

Normalize Self-Direction

Gartner analysis finds that two-fifths of remote employees want more self-directed work. Managers must trust their employees and shift away from directing their work to coaching them to success. To do this, managers should focus on employees’ work product and outputs rather than processes.

Enable New Relationships

The Gartner ReimagineHR Employee Survey, fielded in 4Q19, revealed that 41% of respondents don’t feel connected to colleagues when working remotely and 26% of employees feel isolated when they work remotely. Managers must work with HR to learn signs of distress so that they can recognize them among their direct reports and colleagues.

“Organizations have been very pragmatic and have done well adapting to the new normal from a technology standpoint,” said James Atkinson, VP in the Gartner HR practice. “Now managers need to step in and help their employees build social and emotional connections to ensure individuals feel connected to their colleagues and the organizations, and to help teams continue to work together seamlessly.”

Accentuate the Positive

Employees working fully remotely are nearly twice as likely to receive corrective feedback — which focuses on behavior that was not successful — most often. To promote two-way communication, managers should focus on making discussions with remote employees open, evidence-based and forward-looking. Managers should also make sure to acknowledge what is going right while citing specific examples

Revamp Team Expectations

Many leaders have assumed the majority of people working remotely are individual contributors, however, Gartner analysis shows that fully remote employees are 3.5 times more likely to work across five or more teams. It is crucial for managers to set expectations with individual team members and the larger team to ensure effective individual contributions and team collaboration. Managers should also emphasize individual and team objectives in these conversations.

“While the majority of organizations are not currently hiring, nor are the majority of workers actively seeking new jobs, organizations do need to consider how they are managing their workforce,” said Mr. Kropp. “If companies are not thinking through the employee experience they are creating, they could face significant attrition when the labor market opens back up.”

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4 Steps to Manage Remote Workers

A Gartner, Inc. survey of 229 HR leaders on April 2 revealed that nearly 50% of organizations reported 81% or more of their employees are working remotely during the coronavirus pandemic. Another 15% of those surveyed said 61-80% of employees are working remotely at this time. The Gartner survey showed that many workers are planning to work remotely more often in the future.

“While 30% of employees surveyed worked remotely at least part of the time before the pandemic, Gartner analysis reveals that post-pandemic, 41% of employees are likely to work remotely at least some of the time,” said Brian Kropp, Chief of Research for the Gartner HR practice. “Ultimately, the COVID-19 pandemic has many employees planning to work in a way that they hadn’t previously considered.”

In the current environment, many employees are working remotely for the first time and are now doing it full-time. In tandem, managers are having to direct remote employees and teams, and many of them have never managed remote workers.

To help organizations manage remote talent during the COVID-19 pandemic, Gartner recommends four steps:

Normalize Self-Direction

Gartner analysis finds that two-fifths of remote employees want more self-directed work. Managers must trust their employees and shift away from directing their work to coaching them to success. To do this, managers should focus on employees’ work product and outputs rather than processes.

Enable New Relationships

The Gartner ReimagineHR Employee Survey, fielded in 4Q19, revealed that 41% of respondents don’t feel connected to colleagues when working remotely and 26% of employees feel isolated when they work remotely. Managers must work with HR to learn signs of distress so that they can recognize them among their direct reports and colleagues.

“Organizations have been very pragmatic and have done well adapting to the new normal from a technology standpoint,” said James Atkinson, VP in the Gartner HR practice. “Now managers need to step in and help their employees build social and emotional connections to ensure individuals feel connected to their colleagues and the organizations, and to help teams continue to work together seamlessly.”

Accentuate the Positive

Employees working fully remotely are nearly twice as likely to receive corrective feedback — which focuses on behavior that was not successful — most often. To promote two-way communication, managers should focus on making discussions with remote employees open, evidence-based and forward-looking. Managers should also make sure to acknowledge what is going right while citing specific examples

Revamp Team Expectations

Many leaders have assumed the majority of people working remotely are individual contributors, however, Gartner analysis shows that fully remote employees are 3.5 times more likely to work across five or more teams. It is crucial for managers to set expectations with individual team members and the larger team to ensure effective individual contributions and team collaboration. Managers should also emphasize individual and team objectives in these conversations.

“While the majority of organizations are not currently hiring, nor are the majority of workers actively seeking new jobs, organizations do need to consider how they are managing their workforce,” said Mr. Kropp. “If companies are not thinking through the employee experience they are creating, they could face significant attrition when the labor market opens back up.”

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According to Auvik's 2025 IT Trends Report, 60% of IT professionals feel at least moderately burned out on the job, with 43% stating that their workload is contributing to work stress. At the same time, many IT professionals are naming AI and machine learning as key areas they'd most like to upskill ...

Businesses that face downtime or outages risk financial and reputational damage, as well as reducing partner, shareholder, and customer trust. One of the major challenges that enterprises face is implementing a robust business continuity plan. What's the solution? The answer may lie in disaster recovery tactics such as truly immutable storage and regular disaster recovery testing ...

IT spending is expected to jump nearly 10% in 2025, and organizations are now facing pressure to manage costs without slowing down critical functions like observability. To meet the challenge, leaders are turning to smarter, more cost effective business strategies. Enter stage right: OpenTelemetry, the missing piece of the puzzle that is no longer just an option but rather a strategic advantage ...

Amidst the threat of cyberhacks and data breaches, companies install several security measures to keep their business safely afloat. These measures aim to protect businesses, employees, and crucial data. Yet, employees perceive them as burdensome. Frustrated with complex logins, slow access, and constant security checks, workers decide to completely bypass all security set-ups ...

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In MEAN TIME TO INSIGHT Episode 13, Shamus McGillicuddy, VP of Research, Network Infrastructure and Operations, at EMA discusses hybrid multi-cloud networking strategy ... 

In high-traffic environments, the sheer volume and unpredictable nature of network incidents can quickly overwhelm even the most skilled teams, hindering their ability to react swiftly and effectively, potentially impacting service availability and overall business performance. This is where closed-loop remediation comes into the picture: an IT management concept designed to address the escalating complexity of modern networks ...

In 2025, enterprise workflows are undergoing a seismic shift. Propelled by breakthroughs in generative AI (GenAI), large language models (LLMs), and natural language processing (NLP), a new paradigm is emerging — agentic AI. This technology is not just automating tasks; it's reimagining how organizations make decisions, engage customers, and operate at scale ...

In the early days of the cloud revolution, business leaders perceived cloud services as a means of sidelining IT organizations. IT was too slow, too expensive, or incapable of supporting new technologies. With a team of developers, line of business managers could deploy new applications and services in the cloud. IT has been fighting to retake control ever since. Today, IT is back in the driver's seat, according to new research by Enterprise Management Associates (EMA) ...

In today's fast-paced and increasingly complex network environments, Network Operations Centers (NOCs) are the backbone of ensuring continuous uptime, smooth service delivery, and rapid issue resolution. However, the challenges faced by NOC teams are only growing. In a recent study, 78% state network complexity has grown significantly over the last few years while 84% regularly learn about network issues from users. It is imperative we adopt a new approach to managing today's network experiences ...

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