
Ask HN: Managers of remote employees, what's hard for you? - colinhowe
I&#x27;ve been a remote person for a little while now and a big advocate for it. I&#x27;ve thought a lot about what&#x27;s hard for me, but, I&#x27;d love to hear the other side of it. What&#x27;s hard about managing a remote person?
======
boghy8823
I found out that developing trust with other people is much harder remotely

~~~
colinhowe
Interesting! What makes it hard for you to develop trust? For me, I think that
if I can't trust someone than I don't want them working for me in any capacity
(office or remote!)

~~~
kohanz
Not the OP, but I would imagine part of this comes from the fact that when you
work side-by-side with someone, your level of non-verbal communication and
just the ability to get to know one another is generally going to be a lot
higher. You trust someone through getting to know them better. I'm not saying
you can't achieve this level of communication, familiarity, and trust
remotely, but I would assume it takes more planned effort to do so.

------
actionowl
I manage and work on a small team of 4 people. Myself and one other are
remote, I am at a 13 hour time difference from all of them(!) The hardest part
for me is knowing what's going on during their normal workday. Something can
come up that de-rails their whole day and I'm not there to be their buffer or
to help prioritize. So I guess the hardest part for me, isn't my employees,
it's the other employees in the company that distract them or take up their
time.

------
radiogen
We are keeping person in the office at least half a year (6 payrolls). During
this time they are trained and you can understand if she/he/it fit your
company. After that period we can give remote login only.

