As predicted months ago, 2020 is turning out to be a “Remote Year of Work.”
It’s awesome to work from home—right up to the moment when the pets throw up. And your neighbor, you can imagine he is building a house, all manner of power tools and loud machines are rattling across the street.
Remote working has become the new norm. While this has its fair list of benefits, such as saving time and money on travel and facilitating a healthier work-life balance, it still has some disadvantages. Because people aren’t with their team in the workplace, remote employees sometimes feel less interested and related to their company, which can hurt morale and efficiency.
A recent survey conducted by Gartner says “88% of organizations have motivated or allowed employees to work from home.”
There are a few ways you can keep your employees motivated while they’re working from home. Shall we go a little deeper?
Build Communities: Regular working hours were usually 9am to 5pm; now it is different. This transition could massively hinder the organization’s internal communications. You can build a virtual workspace to keep the workflows going or establish a forum for employees to post both personal and technical updates. Aim to delegate weekly joint activities, inspire team members to work together and remain linked, and you’ll have a blossoming, connected community that will work harder.
Consistent Communication: One of the biggest challenges with remote teams is communication. If the overall internal communication plan does not concentrate on maintaining information consistency, this could lead to distance between workers and poor participation of your remote staff. Encourage the use of instant messaging services such as Hangout and Skype Slack to allow workers to have fast and casual conversations. It will keep the employees connected and transparent on what’s going on by maintaining daily check-ins and promoting contact.
Encourage an Attitude Towards Development: Employees may become uninspired because they are trapped at home and cut off from the outside world due to lockdown. As a manager or team leader, you can inspire your remote team by motivating them to seek personal and career development opportunities. Adopting a development mentality ensures there is still more space to learn and develop, regardless of your role or where you are in your career. You should promote an atmosphere where workers reflect on their potential and not just their success as leaders and managers.
Goal Setting: A key element in making work-from-home successful is discipline. There are going to be a lot of distractions, and work may suffer. A meaningful objective environment is the secret to effectively leading remote teams. Set consistent deliverables and precise measures that will help you to easily manage performance and calculate results.
Recognition: Recognition at the workplace is important to the general performance of the company. When you recognize your workers for their excellent performance, they are very happy with their efforts. It encourages their eagerness to do well andwin the respect of their superiors and colleagues. When the whole planet is devastated by a pandemic that causes everyone to linger in self-isolation, it has become a matter of necessity for HR executives worldwide to show employee appreciation.
Try Engaging with Fun: Conduct periodic surveys to verify with workers what employees say, feel, and do. You should ask few questions yourself. You will have a much better sense about how you to deal with the problem by knowing what the people are going through. Also, with any work that needs to be completed, you should incorporate exciting elements by gamification, making things feel more game-like, to make that work more enjoyable. 70% of Forbes Global 2000 businesses have used gamification to boost engagement, retention and revenue.
Encourage Online Learning: It’s a wonderful time for workers to realize what they’ve always wanted to do and a great time for bosses to make it simpler. Many businesses have invested in e-learning sites, and employees will be able to learn new skills, and develop their existing skills, in the additional hours they have every day. If an organization encourages learning, it instinctively keeps employees excited and committed. Nowadays, most workers want to be trained on tomorrow’s skills, particularly in fields such as AI, Machine Learning, and Data Analytics, which are highly sought after across industries.
Offer Perks and Discounts: Recognition of workers’ contributions and successes can be an important component of the overall performance of your company. One of the most effective ways to make workers more committed is appreciation. They get a sense of pride when they’re rewarded for their efforts, which makes them feel committed and motivates them to do their best. Employee incentives might cover items such as: special business discounts with multiple companies, cashback offers, discounted health policies, hospital tie-ups, gift cards, subscription plans, and more.
Continuous Feedback: It takes continuous input in the form of feedback for every organization to survive and prosper. Similarly, to develop and evolve, workers often need real-time and constant reviews. During this global crisis, as the one-on-one sessions will be virtual, make sure that you take particular care to pick the words and sound of your voice while delivering the feedback. It would be more positive to have a quiet, composed, and understanding tone of voice rather than a curt one, and you should use the right vocabulary.
Conclusion
It may be challenging to keep the team engaged through this COVID-19 outbreak and to help them continue to function remotely. However, for efficient remote working, implementing simple strategies to keep the staff engaged will go a long way.
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