advice for remote managing

[wheresmyrunningshoes]

I am (hopefully) about to be offered a role that is split between home working and and the office. It is a small organization. I would be managing one person based in the office.

Does anyone have advice on how to maintain good communications/management and a sende of team/camaraderie with colleagues?

One of my quandaries is around the days which I would go in. For me it would work best to have fixed days, but there are several team meetings and the days for these are not fixed.

So it is then difficult to give my line report a sense of certainty about when I am in.

Would it be overkill to put my office days in her calendar then update them if they get moved?

[EnglishRain]

Can't you just make sure your calendar is up to date and give them access? I think that would be fine.

[Clymene]

This is how our team works:

Everyone has access to everyone else's calendars.
Days in the office are sent as meeting invites (standard days wfh every week for each person in team).
If there is a meeting that means wfh day needs to be changed, person sends a meeting invite to team 'Clymene in office Tuesday' and then cancel 'clymene wfh Tuesday'

In outlook calendars, that just updates all that info in everyone's calendars. I'd also have a catch up call every Monday morning to discuss week ahead. Keeping in touch is basically key!

[wheresmyrunningshoes]

That sounds like the plan I'll go with @Clymene. I say go with as I got the job

[Clymene]

Congratulations!

[wheresmyrunningshoes]

Thank you

[FusionChefGeoff]

I think picking up the phone is very important. Don't rely on everything coming through email - it takes much longer to get an outcome and loses all personality / relationship building. Make a point of calling them if your wfh so you can check in that it's a good day / listen to a rant if it's not!

Also consider an IM system if you don't already have one. Teams or Slack are my favourite but Skype has one too. They're great for really quick "shout across the desk" type questions and again build a more immediate team feel IMO