The Harvard Business Review defines managing up as “being the most effective employee you can be, creating value for your boss and your company.” As an employee, you want to try and make your manager’s job easier by using the traits of a great boss. Managing working relationships is harder when you are working remotely as you aren’t around each other all the time, making it more of a challenge to bounce ideas around and ask the questions as they pop into your head. Therefore, it is crucial that you maintain a practical, supportive and trusting relationship with your manager, which can be done my managing up.

Staying connected and having effective communication is arguably the most important factor when it comes to managing upwards when working remotely. One of the key features of managing up is creating that trusting relationship with your boss, so by keeping them up-to-date and informed you show them that you are working hard and trying to achieve great things. Whilst it can be argued that there is no such thing as too much communication, a daily phone call and email updates throughout the day should be sufficient enough as you want to make sure each knows what the other is doing - your boss will most likely have a preferred form of communication, so it is also best to use that if you can! Tying in well with the importance of communication when managing up, setting goals and achievements for the day and sharing these is also very effective. It might be a good idea to brief one another on the plan at the start of the day, and then at the end highlight what was accomplished.