Working remotely has increasingly been growing in popularity as technology advances and employers offer flexible working benefits. In today’s atmosphere, though, having the ability to offer remote working is essential – in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, but also beyond that to attract and retain top talent for your company across the country.
Many organizations are reluctant to offer a formal work-from-home option because of the uncertainty of employees’ productivity when they’re out of the office. According to Inc., however, studies have shown that employees are more productive when working from home rather than at an office! Remote working can have a positive impact on your company in many ways, including building loyalty from your employees, widening your recruiting pool and increasing your workforce’s productivity. Where do you start, though?
Strategies To Engage Your Remote Employees
- Transparent Expectations
- Without those in-person, candid conversations, formalized expectations are important to ensure your remote workers understand clearly what they need to continue to achieve in order to maintain success. Whether that’s a sales quota, projects with hard deadlines or just checking in every day, staying on the same page with one another is imperative for a remote set-up.
- Over-communicating
- We take for granted the little conversations we have in the office. The Monday morning weekend catch-up may shed light on an employee struggling with a sick parent; the drive-by, frazzled request from a colleague may show you that they are overwhelmed and need some quick help. These types of conversations help us empathize with each other and shape how we approach our daily tasks. One of the best ways to stay connected with our teams both personally and professionally is to over-communicate how you’re doing, what your workload for the week looks like, what projects you are working on, and where you could use some help.
- Trusting Your Employees
- If you’ve done your recruiting successfully, then you’ve put together a skilled and qualified team already. There’s no reason to think that will change once you move to a remote environment. Sharing trust with employees is essential to making a remote relationship work, both in helping your employees feel valued and in preserving your own sanity.
Many organizations try a remote working trial period to ensure they can guarantee success from the employees before implementing a full policy. This compromise could be a good option for your company to ease into the new style before fully committing; if it doesn’t work out, it’s easy to revert back! More than likely, though, remote working will be successful for the majority of your workforce and exhibit your willingness as a company to invest in your employees and progressive benefits.
You’ve already done the hard work of putting together a team that drives your business forward. Employees want to feel engaged and accomplished in their work and moving from an office to a home desk won’t change that.
