Here's how you can establish trust and rapport with your remote employees as a transportation manager.

1. Clear Communication 2. Foster a Positive Culture 3. Provide Necessary Tools and Resources 4. Trust and Empowerment 5. Clear and Consistent Policies Remote Work Policies: 6. Personal Connection 7. Lead by Example Be Accessible: Make yourself accessible and approachable for your team. By implementing these strategies, you can build a strong, trusting relationship with your remote employees, leading to increased morale, productivity, and job satisfaction.

Building trust and rapport with remote employees as a transportation manager requires intentional effort and thoughtful actions. 1.Transparent Communication**: Foster an environment where communication is open and transparent. Clearly communicate goals, expectations, and any changes in procedures or schedules. Use multiple channels (email, video calls, messaging apps) to ensure everyone stays informed. 2. **Regular Check-ins**: Schedule regular one-on-one meetings with each remote employee. These meetings provide opportunities to discuss progress, address concerns, and offer support. It also shows that you are invested in their success.

Keep in mind that your team members are a crucial source of information for the company. So it's essential to build a brainstorming process to collect these pieces of information, share their thoughts without any restrictions to build trust and involve them in the continuous development process of the company. This culture of open dialogue puts employees at the center of the company's decisions.

Be sure to include them in people development programs. Reach out with formal performance appraisals, as well as, competency assessments. Create avenue where to share best practices among remote operating units.

Remote workers often miss out on the informal lunchroom or impromptu hallway conversations, where a lot of the personal connections are made. Those conversations can still happen while remote, but they take much more intention. In one of my leadership roles, I was intentional about embedding the personal connection opportunity into meeting agendas. For example, I used to include a Safety message and a DEI message in every team meeting. The responsibility for both would rotate around the team, with the encouragement to make the messages both relevant and personal to them. This would often lead to valuable (sometimes challenging!) dialogue that helped foster relationships among the team.

I beleive connecting with remote employees is a challenge but can be managed effectively through structured approach only. Following can be adopted for an effective and meaningful connect" 1- Monthly online connect agenda should be open and based on the employees queries, we called it proactive connect. 2- fortnightly or monthly meetings on KPI's review to see the direction of the team and guide them where necessary. 3- pay physical visits to all remote location at least once a year to have own feel and connect 121. 4- keep doing skipped levels and 121 short meets each employee at least once a year or two year. Above engagement build a stronger team and employees feel that management at Head office taking care of us and our careers.