Engaged employees are often top performers who are committed to going the extra mile to achieve success. Having engaged employees has a positive impact on retention, customer satisfaction, company reputation and even stakeholder value. When remote employees don’t feel engaged with their work, the entire organization is likely to suffer.
Managing a remote workforce isn’t always easy so here are some ideas for effectively engaging your remote employees:
Set clear goals for remote employee engagement. When you want to increase sales or improve customer service, you create a plan to achieve these goals. In the same way, remote employee engagement should be a part of your overall business strategy, which might include objectives such as improving internal communications or implementing company-wide pulse surveys on a regular basis. Share these objectives to raise morale and empower remote teams. Be clear about what you want to achieve and set milestones so there is accountability.
Plan meaningful remote meetings to engage remote workers. Regular one-on-one meetings are important to keep remote workers engaged. These meetings give managers the opportunity to receive valuable feedback and to understand the needs and concerns of their employees who work from home. Topics that can be covered include: their goals and priorities for the week; how effective they find company communications; how they feel about their work-life balance now; things that you can do to make their job more efficient.
Implement remote-work software. With the rise of home offices, digital platforms and applications have come a long way in keeping remote employees engaged, even if teams are scattered in different time zones. When looking for the right communication and collaboration channels, consider what features will be most beneficial to your specific needs. Remember that no matter how good your remote work platform is, your employees still need to be trained to use it to be productive and feel engaged.
Facilitate communication. Take a good look at your communication channels. A constant flow of information is often unnecessary and tiresome for all parties involved. Keep it simple, and market your internal activities appropriately. Create custom approaches to your communications. A newsletter might work for one department, but a short video might be a better approach for another. It doesn’t necessarily translate into creating lots of content to promote internal messages, but it’s good to know what people react to, and why. Personalization enables action.
One of the easiest ways to encourage remote workers to stay engaged is simply to ask them how it’s going. Do they feel like they have enough on their plate or too much? Do they feel like they’re a part of the team even if they aren’t there in person? Do they feel good about their contributions? By regularly gathering this kind of feedback, you can make decisions that will encourage remote employees to stay positive and productive.