Managing Remote People Doesn’t Need To Suck
Always know the status of what they’re working on… in 250 characters or less.
Tell me if this is an apt description of your job: You have multiple direct reports and team members. Some sit next to you in the office. Some on another floor. Some in another building. And some in another city, state, or even country. You are responsible for overseeing their work and managing them. You need to remain updated on the status of their work. You need to know what is going right or wrong with each of their projects. And you want to do this as efficiently as possible, so that you can focus on your own work. Do I have it about right?
Your remote people email you updates throughout the day. They IM you. They text you. They call you. They Skype you. They send you spreadsheets listing the work the projects they’re working on in one column and the status of each project in the next column. They send you Google and Word docs with updates on every project, hoping you’ll comment on the status of their work. They want to prove to you that they’re working hard and efficiently. They send you weekly status reports, or maybe even daily status reports. The influx of information and updates from these remote employees or contractors is enough to drive you to distraction. Literally, to distraction. All you really want to know is what you absolutely need to know about each of their projects. Well, current solutions don’t provide this. Current solutions almost invite long, winding updates.
At UpdateZen, we are thinking about you all the time. And we are thinking about the easiest ways for you to remain updated on the work your remote people are doing.
We provide a simple interface for your remote employees to write updates and document the status of their work… in 250 characters or less. And we provide you with these updates when you want to read them. Instead of filtering through a 17-email thread trying valiantly to figure out the latest status of the project being discussed in the thread, you simply check UpdateZen and see a short status update, distilled down to only what you need to know. “Just the facts, ma’am.” Meaning… you get a 250 character update that was distilled down from a massive email thread. You’re happy, and hey, your remote employee is happy. And you just saved boatloads of time.
As a leader, you do not need or want to know every single detail about your remote employees’ work. You want to know the current status, period. That’s what UpdateZen gives you. And if you want to provide feedback on the current status of a project, well ok, we allow you to do that as well.
UpdateZen is obsessed with providing executives and managers the most efficient way possible to keep their finger on the pulse of everything they NEED TO KNOW that their team is working on… whether their team is sitting beside them or half way across the planet.
Join our beta here.
And try out our gorgeous UpdateZen iPhone app.
