8607-526 Managing Remote Workers

Unit Overview

8607-526 Managing Remote Workers is a unit within the ILM Level 5 qualification in leadership and management that helps build knowledge and understanding of the principles that can be applied in handling remote workers. Within contemporary society, working policies that embrace flexible working have been adopted by organisations. These approaches are adapted as means to improve the convenience with which the worker's acne engages in organisational activities. The policies are also aimed at creating better-working lives where the employees are able to work from different places and deliver on their duties and responsibilities within teams or in the organisation. Remote working is one of the principles of flexible working that have been adopted within the organisation.

This approach allows the employees to work while not physically present within the organisation and hence presents better working conditions and terms for the employees. However, it is important for the leaders to ensure that they can coordinate the remote workers effectively to ensure that the productivity of teams or the organisation, in general, is not compromised by the lack of physical interactions with team members.

8607-526 Managing Remote Workers is a unit that aims at helping the leader in teams and the organisations in general to develop the abilities and techniques that they can implement to effectively manage remote workers to ensure they are able to achieve the desired goals and objectives in terms of performance and investment to the organisation activities. This unit is taught in 12 hours of guided learning and contributes 5 credit values towards the completion of ILM Level 5 qualification in leadership and management.

Suitability of the Unit

Companies and organisations that have adopted remote working policies allow employees in different areas of operation to work outside the organisations. As such, leaders in different levels and units within the organisation must be guided to develop the capabilities and skills that are reliant on handling employees who are working away from the organisation. This makes the principles critical for different levels of leadership within the organisation.The unit is suitable for all leaders within the organisation in ensuring that they are able to oversee and facilitate remote working without compromising the output of the employees and the contribution they make towards accomplishing the goals and objectives assigned to the team and in extension of the organisational goals and objectives.

The unit is specifically designed to provide learning experiences to the middle managers within the organisations. These are leaders who are responsible for overseeing team activities. When a team is working remotely, the leaders must have the capacity to effectively manage all team members and ensures they contribute to the team's activities making eh content of this unit suitable for these leaders.

However, the unit is also suitable for first-line managers, junior managers, team leaders and top-level leaders who develop policies as it helps them to understand the critical principles of leadership to consider when implementing the policy of remote working within the organisation. Employees and team members can also pursue the unit to better understand the concept of remote working and its influence on their performance within the organisation.

Learning Outcomes

Upon completion of the unit, the learners should be able to:

• Identify the differences between different remote working practice

• Identify the organisational policy in relation to remote working practices.

• Explain the contractual requirements that have been established within the workplace in relation to the practices of remote working

• Identify the health and safety legislative measures associated with remote working practice s including the use of IT equipment in the practices

• Understand the data protection act and its impact on remote working practices.

• Describe the advantages and disadvantages of remote working for the remote worker and the employer

• Explain the difficulties a middle manager can face when managing remote workers.

Key Learning Areas 

8607-526 Managing Remote Workers is a unit that is aimed at improving the ability of line managers to influence the practices within their areas of responsibility. It helps them to implement the practices of remote working, which facilitate flexible working. The main areas of learning covered within the unit include:

Remote Working

This area of learning helps to understand the principles of remote working. Learners are introduced to the developments in flexible working, including remote working and its benefits as well as disadvantages within the organisation. They are guided on the approaches they can use to determine individuals who are allowed to use remote working based on different policies and principles.

Leading Remote Working

This area of learning focuses on approaches that should be used to effectively lead remote workers with a team. It involves developing communication, trust, motivation and skills development approaches as tools for managing people remotely. Additionally, the learners are helped to understand approaches that they can use to create a sense of belonging and address issues of isolation for remote workers. The use of skills for remote working such as time management, problem-solving, decision making and information technology skills, is used to effectively achieve the desired goals in remote working and the learners are trained on effectively using these techniques to implement remote working.

Supporting Remote Workers

This area of learning helps the learners to develop mechanisms that they can use to provide the relevant support to the remote workers. This includes being able to provide support that is technical to the remote workers. It involves being able to utilise existing technology to support the activities of remote workers and ensure that the desired goals and objectives are achieved. The area of learning also helps in developing a remote working policy as well as approaches to promote health and safety principles in relation to remote workers.

Evaluation

On completion of the unit, the learners are evaluated using different mechanisms. A written assessment is used to evaluate the understanding of theoretical principles. Simulated exercises and supervised practices are also used in the formative phase to determine ability to apply learned concepts in practical settings.