What to Tell Your Remote Boss

By Julia King

May 28, 2007 12:00 PM ET

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Computerworld - Fifteen years ago, when management expert and best-selling author Jaclyn Kostner was writing her doctoral dissertation on geographically dispersed work teams, the No. 1 issue affecting remote workers was career implosion. The cause was a woeful lack of communication.

"When you're out of sight, you're out of mind, and your career won't do well," says Kostner, now president of Bridge the Distance, a Denver-based training consultancy specializing in remote management and virtual teams. "Today, despite all of the new technology we have and a global economy that is changing drastically, there's still a ceiling for people who work remotely," she observes.

To help workers break through that ceiling and communicate more effectively with their managers, Kostner came up with CARE, a model that precisely lays out what information remote employees should regularly communicate to their geographically dispersed managers. It includes these four elements:

Changes in project status, working hours, partnership agreements and anything else that affects performance.
Accomplishments, both team and individual.
Requests for tools, personnel and anything else they need to be more effective.
Environmental details that can affect productivity in the remote workplace.

"What you're trying to do with the CARE model is communicate the details that your remote boss can't see," says Kostner. "Write down the key points before you pick up the phone, and send a bulleted e-mail after the call." A big part of managing your career as a remote employee, she says, is "getting smarter about communicating about what you're working on and the results you're getting."

See the main story, The Remote Worker's Survival Guide

See more on telecommuting:

Read more about careers in Computerworld's Careers Knowledge Center.

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