How to Manage Your Staff While Traveling
How to Manage Your Staff While Traveling
Dr. Jordan Sudberg thinks that traveling for work can be an excellent opportunity to visit new places, connect with colleagues in other cities, and expand your network. But traveling also entails extra obligations, like packing, preparing your home for guests, and booking flights. It is where it’s essential to make sure that everything is managed well so that you can focus on work when you’re away from your base office. These five tips will help you manage your staff while traveling.
1. Keep Lines of Communication Open
When you’re in a different city, you may be tempted to log off for some time. But as the boss, it is your responsibility to ensure that your team’s needs are met. Ensuring that there is always someone in the office who can take care of urgent tasks while you’re away. According to a study by the Center for Creative Leadership, most employees who experience “high levels of job dissatisfaction admitted that they had higher expectations of their supervisor than their more satisfied co-workers.” In simple terms, if your staff expect more from you, you should deliver more by ensuring that everything is managed smoothly even when you’re away from the office.
2. Delegate Tasks to Other Staff Members
It would be best to use specific standard tools like email and conference calls to get things done. However, since many of your team members are on the other side of the world, it’s hard for them to do their part in completing daily tasks. It is why you should ask other staff members to help meet some of the functions that are not so critical but still need your attention.
3. Keep their personalities in mind
You should know that not every team member can handle specific tasks when delegating tasks. You should also know that not all personalities are suited to particular tasks. For example, if someone in your team is known for being a stress case, they might not be the best person to deal with a stressful customer phone call.
4. Give them autonomy
Helping out with daily tasks doesn’t mean you have to control their entire work day. Instead, you should ensure that your team members are given the autonomy to do the jobs themselves, which will help them perform better in the long run. According to a Cornell University study, “employees who felt they had control over their workday were more satisfied with their jobs, happier with their colleagues, and higher in overall productivity than employees who did not have that control.”
5. Relax
According to pain management specialist Dr. Jordan Sudberg, when people feel overwhelmed, they do everything at once. It can often lead to a sense of anxiety, stress, and more work. When you’re constantly stressed while on vacation, you’re not going to have time to relax. You should keep a separate account on your phone with some relaxation apps that are used just for times like these.
These tips will help you manage your staff while traveling. Dr. Sudberg, “psychological stress can arise from many different causes. Rather than focusing on the symptoms, work to find the root cause of your stress and address it.