Excellent post. I feel you are right on in your guidance to other remote managers out there. I have spoken to so many managers who either struggle with remote management or fear it like the plague because, “how do I know they’re working, if I can’t see them.” If you don’t mind, I would like to further elaborate on some of your best practices. When looking at allowing a large part of your workforce to work remotely, consider the legal liabilites, work processes, core competencies, and assesment tools that will be used to measure success.
1. Legal liabilites, it’s important to know that employers can be and have been held accountable for injuries in the home, so setting some standards around safety and security is a must. Also standards around protecting your companies’ proprietary information should be considered.
2. Work Processes, managers need to map out their employees’ job descriptions and work methods. This assessement will inform managers what resources and support employees will need to complete their jobs. It also makes it easier to set performance expectations off specific job functions.
3. Core Competencies, managers should look at what it takes to be a good remote employee. (to see an example of these core competencies, check out http://www.hrtelecommuting.com ) Managers can then use these competencies to also build performance metrics.
4. Assessment, track your remote workers results! This is so fudamental, but also so critical to bolstering your cause for further Remote Workers. You should track such things as productivity, quality of work, retention rates, attraction of new talent, and other things commonly associated with Remote Work.

I often tell employers that they need to provide a base level of standards for managers to work from. From these standard policies and procedures, managers should then be able to better manage and support their remote employees. For more information or for some sample telecommuting and remote work policies and procedures, check out my blog at: http://www.telecommutingforum.com . Keep up the great posts, this is great information!