Keeping Employees Engaged and Motivated in a Remote Work Setup
August 18, 2020
As a number of businesses are moving to remote work due to the global pandemic, there are two primary things you can do to keep employee engagement high and motivated—connect with them and give them recognition.
Work from home may sound heavenly to some. However, there are employees who are also full-time parents and are tasked with caring for people in their homes. They’re juggling multiple roles and trying their best to be productive and efficient. This setup can be exhausting, and it becomes hard to be positive, motivated, and sane.
At times like this, it is very easy for your remote staff to feel discouraged or feel disconnected from the organization, which can result to lower productivity.
To help address this issue, it is highly recommended for team leads and managers develop a communication process for employee engagement to keep in touch with employees. Here at Enadoc we will be discussing a few tips.
Connecting with your employees can help you understand what motivates them and apply different strategies that will help engage people in the organization.
Employee Engagement Tips and Tools
Encourage Employee Wellbeing
Maintaining physical and mental health should be a top priority in your teams. Promote healthy habits like a better diet, home workouts, or conduct yoga or meditation sessions to sustain overall well-being.
Virtual Hangouts
Online meetings are not only for work, but you can also utilize them to have fun virtual coffee breaks or “team dinners”, or you can take it one step further and do an online karaoke night!
It is okay to have a little break in between to relax and talk about how your team feels, especially with the current pandemic. Maintaining regular and honest conversations can help your team bond and grow together.
Game Nights
Another way to promote employee engagement is through fun and competitive virtual games among departments. There are platforms like Kahoot! which inspire friendly competition and gets the brain running.
Encourage employees to enjoy working with their colleagues while maintaining a work-life balance.
Use Secure Communication and Collaboration Platforms for Employee Engagement
Using tools such as Microsoft Teams can help your employees collaborate and keep in touch during the lockdown. Knowing that your colleagues are “just a call away” can help your employees feel at ease and be assured that they are an important part of the organization.
Having a centralized productivity platform can help your employees be productive and do better at time management.
Recognize Employee Efforts
Giving the right recognition to your employees can help boost their morale and energy levels. Team leads and management recognizing and appreciating employees for their hard work during times like this can improve staff happiness and increase their productivity.
According to Forbes, research says around 40% of employees say if they’re frequently recognized, they are more likely to be productive and motivated to efficiently finish tasks.
Be Transparent
At times like this, it is necessary for the management to clearly communicate the company’s objectives while showing empathy and compassion towards employees.
Keep staff informed on the company’s short-term and long-term goals and provide clarity to keep them engaged. Having a clear purpose can help organizations achieve certain goals or milestones. Arrange regular announcements via town hall meetings to keep employees up to date.
Apply the Right Business Continuity Plan
When a disaster hits an organization, business leaders must implement strategic decisions for business continuity. However, the plan that will be applied must be tailored to fit the company’s culture and employees.
Not every employee will react positively toward remote working. Some may show positive symptoms however, others may not. Understand the employees who are having difficulty adjusting to different work environments and offer support and positive energy.
Encourage Skill Improvement for Employee Engagement
While adjusting to the new normal, management should support and guide employees to improve their skills. Provide them with new KPIs and encourage them to take online courses that are freely available. Allow employees to expand their skill set and level up with certifications. Employee engagement is an essential factor to all of this.
As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, business leaders must focus more on the effort and quality of employees’ work instead of the number of hours recorded. After your employees are the biggest asset in the organization.
Having high-performing teams and employees within your organization can turn crisis into opportunity, with the proper guidance of business leaders.
