Conducting Efficient Check-Ins

I’ve onboarded remote hires across time zones, continents, and cultures. And here’s what I’ve learned: Remote onboarding doesn’t ⭐fail⭐ because of location. It fails because of assumptions. Assuming someone will “just speak up.” Assuming they’ll know what success looks like. Assuming they feel like they belong. Without hallway chats or shadowing, remote employees miss all the informal context that makes onboarding feel human—not just functional. Here’s how I’ve made it work: 💬 Over-communicate expectations and priorities 🎥 Use video, even for 15-minute check-ins 📅 Create a rhythm of connection—1:1s, team intros, buddy syncs ☕ Encourage informal conversations (yes, even virtual coffee chats) Remote doesn’t have to mean disconnected. In fact, with the right systems, it can feel even more inclusive. It took me many years of learning the hard way to build this out. And I’d like to share it with you, no strings attached. (see link in comments) That’s why I built these practices right in our Manager Onboarding Kit—to help leaders support their teams with intention, no matter where they are.

I sent laptops to 7 remote hires. 5 quit within 90 days. Costly mistake.  Brutal lesson. I thought I was onboarding them. They felt abandoned. And the data proves I wasn’t alone: 🚫 63% of remote employees say onboarding was inadequate. 🚫 60% feel lost and disoriented after their first week. 🚫 Remote hires take 3-6 months longer to reach full productivity. A laptop in a box isn’t onboarding.  It’s a fast track to disengagement. So I rebuilt our process—and retention jumped 82%. Here’s exactly what worked: 🔥 The Buddy System ✔ Assign a mentor (daily check-ins for the first 2 weeks) ✔ Encourage “silly” questions—zero judgment ✔ Make support feel human, not bureaucratic 🔥 Connection Before Content ✔ Virtual coffee chats before training starts ✔ Executive welcome video on Day 1 ✔ Remote-friendly team social event in Week 1 🔥 Digestible Learning ✔ 90-minute training modules (no info overload!) ✔ Spread onboarding across 3 weeks, not 3 days ✔ Live discussions > passive video watching 🔥 Tech Readiness ✔ IT setup completed before Day 1 ✔ Test systems with the hire the day before ✔ Provide a digital “emergency contact” for tech issues 🔥 Culture Immersion ✔ Virtual office tour with real team stories ✔ Inside-joke dictionary (every company has one!) ✔ Daily connections between work tasks & company mission 🔥 Strategic Check-ins ✔ Week 1: "What surprised you?" ✔ Month 1: "Where do you need more clarity?" ✔ Quarter 1: "How can we better support your growth?” 🔥 Early Wins = Early Buy-In ✔ Assign a small, meaningful project in Week 1 ✔ Recognize their success publicly ✔ Show them how their work makes an impact Remote onboarding isn’t about dumping information. It’s about building confidence, connection, and commitment. Do this right, and your new hires won’t just stay. They’ll thrive. P.S. What’s one thing you wish you had in your first remote onboarding? ♻️ Repost this to help HR teams fix onboarding before it costs them top talent.

Remote teams don’t have a trust problem. They have a design problem. Leaders are still running an in-person playbook in a remote environment. And it breaks. → Quick messages instead of real conversations → Stepping in only when something’s wrong → Assuming alignment instead of creating it Then wondering why trust feels thin… and performance is inconsistent. Remote leadership doesn’t fail because people are remote. It fails because leaders don’t replace proximity with structure. If you want a high-performing remote team, you need a system that creates clarity, connection, and accountability—by design. Start here: 📅 Non-Negotiable 1:1s ↳ Your most important lever for trust. • Schedule recurring 1:1s (no skipping) • Use the same 3–5 questions every time • Take notes and follow up 🤝 Connection Rituals ↳ Connection isn’t organic anymore—build it in. → Start meetings with a quick personal check-in → Create space for learning and growth → Use Personal User Guides so teammates understand each other ✅ Structured Check-Ins ↳ Replace “let me know if you need anything” with clarity. • Define clear tasks with deadlines • Use async updates between meetings • Set a predictable check-in rhythm 💻 Camera Norms + Engagement Standards ↳ Don’t confuse visibility with engagement. → Be explicit about when cameras matter → Document the norm → Measure contribution, not screen time 👥 In-Person Offsites ↳ Remote works best when it’s reinforced in person. • Bring the team together every 120 days • Focus on trust, alignment, and big-picture thinking • Build shared experiences When people know what to expect, they show up differently. More clarity. More ownership. More trust. Even when they’re miles apart. Don’t try to fix everything at once. Pick one. Test it for 30 days. Then layer in the next. If this feels familiar, you don’t need a full overhaul—just a better system. Happy to share the exact cadence we use with teams. What’s been hardest about leading remotely? -------------------------- ♻️ Repost this to help other leaders you know. ➕ Follow Ben Sands for daily advice on business and leadership. 📬 5,800+ CEOs get practical tips every Saturday.  Click here to join them: https://lnkd.in/eXiRx-HZ

Early-career workers in remote roles pay a price. It’s a visibility problem, not a talent one. Many young professionals want remote work, but remote roles come with hidden challenges. Yet, too few are taught how to navigate them. A client recently learned that she hadn't made the list to be considered for a promotion. When she asked why, she was told, "The team needs someone local, who can work hybrid. We didn't think you'd consider a move." She would have been excited to move. I’m seeing the same patterns across the young remote workers I coach: ❌ Minimal support ➙ No quick questions, no informal coaching ❌ Less grace for mistakes ➙ It's assumed "remote" is the problem ❌ Delayed information ➙ Blindsided by decisions made in closed rooms ❌ Career stagnation ➙ No clear path to advancement The good news? You can address these challenges with smart, intentional strategies. I led a team of remote 20-somethings years before remote work was mainstream. They went on to build amazing careers. Here are 6 strategies I shared with them that still hold true today: 1️⃣ Make Informal Connections ➙ Reach out with “check-ins” that aren’t tied to a task ➙ Join optional chats, virtual coffees & interest groups ➙ Share wins & insights to stay top of mind 2️⃣ Identify "Go-to" People ➙ Map who owns knowledge and decisions across teams ➙ Build rapport with 1–2 people in your key work functions ➙ Notice who others consult when problems arise 3️⃣ Find a Mentor ➙ Look for someone whose path/role you aspire to ➙ Ask for a recurring 20-30 minute chat every 6-8 weeks ➙ Share your goals so they can advocate for you 4️⃣ Learn Where You Sit ➙ Understand your team’s goals, priorities, and stressors ➙ Identify adjacent teams you impact (or depend on) ➙ Watch how decisions move through your organization 5️⃣ Ask for Timely Feedback ➙ Solicit what you should keep doing and what to stop ➙ Get expectations on your work to avoid surprises ➙ Share wins/misses monthly to show growth & initiative 6️⃣ Build Political Savvy ➙ Learn formal and informal power structures ➙ Ask questions to understand decision-making ➙ Volunteer for cross-functional opportunities Bottom line: If you are remote and want to get ahead: ✅Make yourself and your work visible ✅Build meaningful relationships and advocates ✅Be sure your commitment and goals are clear 🎉You've got this and I've got you!🎉 🔖 Save this so you'll have it when you need it ♻️ Share to help people navigating remote work early in their career 🔔 Follow Sarah Baker Andrus for more career strategies

AWS Compute Selection 1. Start by validating workload duration; if the process runs longer than 15 minutes, you must categorize it as a long-running workload. 2. For these long-running workloads, assess your need for containerization: select AWS Fargate for serverless container management, or default to Amazon EC2 if containers are not required. 3. If the workload is short-lived (<15 mins), shift your focus to traffic patterns to distinguish between event-driven variable traffic and predictable traffic. 4. When handling variable traffic, evaluate workflow complexity: architect complex orchestrations using Step Functions + Lambda, or utilize standalone AWS Lambda for simple tasks. 5. If traffic is predictable, determine if the workload requires edge processing to reduce latency or if it can reside centrally in a specific region. 6. For edge scenarios, select based on execution speed: implement CloudFront Functions for ultra-low (sub-millisecond) latency or Lambda@Edge for standard low latency. 7. For region-based workloads, decide on your need for infrastructure control: provision Amazon EC2 if you require full OS/hardware access, or choose AWS Lambda to abstract the underlying logic entirely.

Earlier this week I wrote about the importance of camera presence for remote teams. Today I want to talk about the biggest mistake I see leaders make when managing dispersed teams. It isn't about productivity tools, time zones, or communication cadence. It's this: they've replaced human connection with message volume — and then wonder why their team feels distant. Early in my remote career, I used to pick one day a week and spend the entire day on camera with a team member on my second screen — just to recreate the feeling of sitting in the same office. This was 20 years ago, when working remotely was still novel and being on camera all day was genuinely unusual. I didn't do it because I had to. I did it because I understood something then that too many leaders still haven't internalized: technology can improve communication and connection, but it is not a silver bullet. Slack is a remarkable tool. So is email. So is a project management dashboard. But none of them can do what a genuine conversation does — build the kind of trust that makes a team resilient when things get hard. Here's what intentional trust-building actually looks like in a remote environment: 1. Show up consistently, not just when there's an agenda. The leaders who earn the deepest loyalty from remote teams are the ones who make time for conversations with no deliverable attached. A 15-minute check-in with no agenda sends a message that no status update ever could. 2. Be visible, not just available. There's a difference between having an open-door policy and actually being seen. Turn your camera on. Be genuinely present in team calls — not monitoring from another tab. Your team notices, even when they don't say so. 3. Know what's happening in their lives — not just their workloads. Remote work can make people invisible in ways that in-person work doesn't. The teammate who goes quiet might be going through something. Ask. Remember. Follow up. Those moments are what separate a manager from a leader. 4. Give recognition in public, feedback in private — and do both promptly. In a remote environment, recognition doesn't happen organically. You have to be deliberate. A well-timed, specific acknowledgment in a team channel builds more trust than a quarterly review ever will. "Trust is built in moments, not systems. Remote leaders who wait for the right tool or process to create connection will keep waiting." The most cohesive remote teams I've been part of weren't cohesive because of their tech stack. They were cohesive because their leaders treated connection as a core responsibility — not a nice-to-have. If you lead a remote team, ask yourself: when was the last time you had a conversation with a team member that had nothing to do with work? #RemoteLeadership #FutureOfWork #RemoteWork #Leadership #ManagementTips

What do good managers do? They manage employee workloads to their optimal stress levels. What’s optimal stress? The Yerkes-Dodson Law, which dates back to 1908, examined the relationship between arousal and performance in mice. It found that for complex tasks, increasing stimulus produced a nonlinear response, in other words, performance improved to a point with greater stimulus, but then diminished. The curve’s inverted U-shape meant there was a local maximum, or an ideal stress point that produced the best performance. Scientists later replicated this finding in cats, rats, and people, showing that high levels of stress impaired cognitive performance. Glucocorticoids such as cortisol, a stress hormone, affect thinking, and when levels are too high, learning and memory function diminish. This inverted U response makes intuitive sense in business. Task complexity and volume must be sufficiently challenging to hold an employee’s interest, but when things get more complicated or come in too fast, stress increases. Above the “Goldilocks zone,” workers become overwhelmed and produce less. Despite this fact, most managers just pile on the work in response to pressure to “do more with less.” But because of limits in human cognitive performance, overloading employees delivers the exact opposite. What to do? Little’s Law, a theorem from queuing theory, provides insight: Response Time = Work in Progress / Completion Rate Results improve when the numerator gets smaller, the denominator gets bigger, or both occur. So to deal with greater workloads and fewer resources, managers should: ➡ Narrow the scope of work. Focus on the critical few things that matter, not the trivial many that don’t. Counterintuitively, doing less can actually do more because it reduces the total amount of work in progress. ➡ Improve the system. A process can only deliver what it’s capable of delivering. Increase throughput by simplifying, reducing errors and rework, making serial steps parallel, and selectively automating tasks. By making the tough decisions and improving workflows, managers can ensure employees stay within their optimal performance ranges, regardless of increased demand and fewer resources. Workers will be less stressed and happier, too. #customersuccess #customersuccessmanagement #revenueoperations #management #saas

🔧 Exploring Capacity Planning in SAP Plant Maintenance (PM) 🚀 Ever faced a situation where planned maintenance work exceeds available resources,leading to backlogs and delays? Or worse, inefficient scheduling that results in idle technicians and wasted capacity? That’s where Capacity Planning in SAP PM comes in! 👉 What is Capacity Planning in SAP PM? Capacity planning ensures that maintenance work is planned realistically by aligning the required work hours with the available workforce and machine capacity at a Work Center. 🔍 Key Aspects of Capacity Planning in SAP PM ✅ Work Centers as Capacity Holders ▶️ In SAP PM, maintenance activities are assigned to work centers, representing maintenance teams, workshops, or machines. ▶️ Work centers hold capacity data (e.g., number of technicians, available work hours, shift schedules). ✅ Standard Value & Formula in Task Lists/Orders 👉 Every operation in a maintenance order (IW31/IW32) or task list (IA01/IA02) contains: 📌 Work center – Defines available capacity 📌 Activity Type – Links to cost rates for labor 📌 Standard Values – Defines execution time for an operation 📌 Formula – Calculates required capacity (work = duration × number of people) ✅ Capacity Load Analysis & Leveling SAP provides tools to analyze and adjust workloads: 📌 CM01 (Work Center Load Report) – Shows available vs. required capacity. 📌 CM21 (Capacity Leveling) – Helps reschedule orders to balance workloads. ✅ Integration with Preventive Maintenance (PM Plans) IP30 (Deadline Monitoring) generates maintenance orders based on schedules. Without capacity checks, workloads may exceed availability, causing scheduling conflicts. 🛠️ Managing Capacity in SAP PM – Step by Step 1️⃣ Define Work Centers & Capacities Use CR01/CR02 to set available hours, shifts, and technicians. 2️⃣ Assign Work Centers in Task Lists & Orders ▶️ Standard values & formulas in task lists (IA01) ensure accurate workload estimation. ▶️ When creating work orders (IW31), SAP calculates required capacity. 3️⃣ Monitor Work Center Loads ▶️ Use CM01 to check if maintenance teams are overloaded or underutilized. ▶️ Identify potential scheduling issues before execution. 4️⃣ Level Capacity (CM21) ▶️ Reschedule overloaded orders by adjusting start dates or shifting work. ▶️ Use dispatching functions to prioritize urgent tasks. 5️⃣ Optimize Preventive & Breakdown Workload ▶️ Ensure preventive maintenance orders align with available resources. ▶️ Adjust unplanned (corrective) work orders without overloading technicians. 🚀 Why Capacity Planning Matters? ✅ Prevents last-minute scheduling conflicts ✅ Optimizes workforce utilization & efficiency ✅ Reduces work order backlogs & delays ✅ Ensures smooth execution of preventive & corrective maintenance 👉 Pro Tip: Always review capacity before releasing large maintenance orders to avoid unexpected bottlenecks! How does your team handle maintenance capacity planning? Let’s discuss in the comments! 👇 #SAPPM #PM

Have you ever felt lost in a new project or job? Navigating multiple demands can be challenging, but there are strategies to help manage the work effectively: 📌 Prioritize tasks: use a prioritization to categorize tasks by urgency and importance, critical and high. Focus on critical-impact activities first. 🎯 Set clear objectives: define specific, measurable goals for each project or task. This helps you stay aligned with business needs and reduces the feeling of being overwhelmed. 📣 Communicate: keep stakeholders informed about your workload and timelines. Clear communication helps manage expectations and can lead to better resource allocation. 🔄 Use Agile methodologies: implement Agile practices, such as sprints and regular check-ins, to break down work into manageable pieces and maintain focus. 🛠 Leverage tools: utilize project management tools (like Trello, Asana, Jira, Azure DevOps) to track tasks, deadlines, and progress. This provides visibility and helps you stay organized. 🤝 Delegate and collaborate: if possible, delegate tasks to team members or collaborate with colleagues to share the workload. ⌛ Time management: practice effective time management techniques, such as the Pomodoro Technique, to enhance focus and productivity. 🚫 Learn to say "no": assess new requests critically. If a task doesn’t align with current priorities or isn’t feasible, communicate this respectfully to stakeholders. 🤔 Regular reflection: schedule time for regular reflection on what’s working and what isn’t. Adjust your approach as needed to improve efficiency. 📞 Seek support: don’t hesitate to ask for help from your team or manager if you’re feeling overwhelmed. They can provide resources or help reprioritize tasks. By implementing these strategies, you can better manage competing demands and maintain clarity in your role. Tell me, are these tips useful? Is there another one you would like to suggest? #businessanalysis #projectmanagement #demandmanagement

Are You Maximizing Your Operational Leverage❓ Most executives are running at full capacity, but are you making the highest and best use of your team’s time? One of the simplest ways to create leverage is by systematically offloading low-value work so your top performers (and you) focus on what truly moves the business forward. 🔑 Here’s how to do it today: ✅ Step 1: Audit Your Time & Team's Work Look at your calendar and your team’s workload; what % is spent on high-value vs. low-value tasks? Identify any repetitive, manual, or non-strategic work that can be streamlined or eliminated. ✅ Step 2: Ruthlessly Eliminate or Automate Kill off unnecessary reports, meetings, and approvals. Automate where possible; AI, templates, and workflows can save hours per week. Delegate smarter; empower your team to own decisions at their level. ✅ Step 3: Implement a ‘No-Task-Without-Leverage’ Rule If a task doesn’t increase revenue, efficiency, or strategic impact, challenge why it’s being done. Every leader should ask: “Can this be delegated, automated, or stopped?” before doing it. ✅ Step 4: Set Up a Leverage Checkpoint Review your team’s workload monthly to ensure high-value work is prioritized. Continuously refine; what worked last quarter may not be optimal today. The best executives don’t just work harder—they create systems that multiply their impact. 🚀 👉 What’s one task you need to eliminate or automate this week? #CEO #COO #CXO #ai #Leadership #OperationalExcellence #Efficiency #Scaling