REMOTE WORK AND MAINTAINING EMPLOYEE MOTIVATION

 

Working from Home has drastically changed the way employees interact with their colleagues and managers. While Working from Home is not new, this almost mandatory switch to remote working without much transition time has proved to be challenging for both the employees and companies. Given the unprecedented scale of this change and that this is likely to be a long-term change, it may result in demotivated employees and thus low productivity for the organization. Many companies have now started seriously investing in technology to build a smooth digital workflow between employees and their managers.

The transition from working time-bound and physically in the office to work from home can leave any employee feeling lost and unmotivated given the physical absence of colleagues, office support, and office infrastructure.

Keeping your employees motivated during adaptation to this change is critical to ensure that the organizational performance doesn’t suffer.

Here are five strategies to help drive engagement and inspire your employees while working remotely.

 

1. Provide Your Team with the Right Tools 

An ill-equipped team cannot do and submit their work on time. Lack of technical tools also ends up interrupting the workflow of the employee. Communication issues become more acute when the individual is a remote employee and does not have communication access to the IT team. 

Remote employees need email, a good internet connection, time tracking tools, remote communication tools, video conferencing tools, project management tools, a direct messaging platform, and a way to share and download files to do their job effectively.

This further allows for collaboration and communication, which are crucial ingredients impacting the team’s motivation and subsequent success. 

 

2. Recognise and Celebrate Achievements

It’s not just major goals or KPIs that should be acknowledged. To keep employees motivated it’s important to set and celebrate mini milestones. Employees who receive regular small rewards even if it’s only thanks, are more engaged than employees that receive monetary increases once a year.

In addition to annual or quarterly objectives, set goals on a weekly or monthly basis. These should positively challenge and develop your people. As well as performance related KPIs, include social, cultural, or personal development – for example, setting a goal for delivering a presentation with impact.

Taking the time to recognize and celebrate achievements big and small is important when working remotely as there are less informal touchpoints. This means as a manager you need to be deliberate and mindful to ensure you’re recognising and celebrating mini milestones.

 

3. Communication Is Key

When you do not get to see someone in the office every day, it becomes essential to find ways to have an ongoing thread of communication live with such employees. It is even better if it is video conferencing.

It has been seen that more than half of human communication is nonverbal. It is critical to have visual clues to have a better understanding of what one is thinking. Video calls tell you way more than an audio only call or a chat will ever reveal. 

You will easily find many free or relatively less expensive digital solutions for video calling such as Skype, Zoom and other remote meeting software. These tools are easily available in the market today. The virtual meetings also make the employee continue to feel connected and motivated.  

Try to also build a culture of adding people on calls. Treat remote workers as if they were in the same office space, and loop in the remote person into the meeting when relevant and required. 

Also, introduce a bit of humor in your communication, that’s workplace appropriate. A little humor can go a long way in establishing goodwill on your team and keeping the lines of communication open.

 

4. Always Provide Feedback

Nothing makes a remote employee feel more involved than receiving constructive feedback on their work.

Regular feedback is critical to keeping your team motivated and engaged as it helps with aligning expectations and objectives with performance and shows that you care about their work. Please make sure and provide positive feedback as well when warranted

 

5. Use Survey Tools to Gauge Motivation 

With the help of many survey tools available in the market, you can create your own questionnaire to gauge the motivation levels in your remote workforce. Ask probing questions that nudge them to answer what is working out for them in the current set and what they wish they could have changed. 

This effort gives out a strong signal to your employees that you care about them, and makes them feel that their inputs are appreciated.

Encourage your remote employees to open up about what affects their morale and motivation by having one-on-one discussions with them based on the results of the survey tool.

This will help you gain an understanding of what might be needed most urgently in your organization in order to motivate the employees to reach key performance indicators and overall team motivation.

 

Conclusion

Remote working is the future of the modern workplace, and the sooner organizations prepare for it, the better. Employee motivation has always played a key role during such transitions and will continue to be vital for team productivity as you migrate and enhance your remote work set up. 

It is important to remember that motivating a team doesn’t happen overnight in a new type of office environment. It is a long-term investment requiring consistency from you and your management team on a daily basis.