The COVID-19 pandemic had a profound effect on how most organisations operate. To protect the health of their employees, most businesses had to switch to a remote workforce. Even though there will come a day when the novel coronavirus pandemic will end, many employers are wondering whether they should go back to the way things were.
Once they successfully transition to a remote workforce, most employers notice that their staff can do more work. Managers also get access to a wider and more qualified talent pool when they start recruiting remote workers.
While the benefits to having employees work remotely are evident, the transition from an office to a home environment is often quite challenging. Here are some of the best tips you should follow in order to successfully manage remote employees and ensure they stay productive while working from home.
Keep Your Employees Engaged
Most employees love the idea of working from home, but it usually doesn’t pan out as they imagined. It can be hard to stay motivated and productive if you’re used to working at the office. That’s why it’s imperative for managers and supervisors to keep their remote workforce engaged.
Make sure to establish regular communication with each employee and provide them with clear performance expectations. Let them know that they can reach you at any time during regular work hours. Set achievable goals on a daily basis to help boost their motivation.
Finally, you should provide your staff with positive feedback as often as possible. Remote employees are more likely to feel left out than on-site workers. Due to a lack of interaction in the real world, employees in a remote-work environment often feel like they have less access to company leadership. As a manager or business owner, you should be easily accessible to anyone at your firm.
Equip Your Remote Workforce
Some of your employees may not have the necessary equipment to do their job effectively at home. That’s why your responsibility should be to equip your remote workforce. That means you should either buy or hire laptops for remote work, cameras, and even smartphones.
This is quite a small investment compared to what you’ll get in return. With better equipment, your staff will be able to collaborate and work more efficiently. This will also have a positive impact on the productivity of each individual employee.
While physical equipment is crucial for your remote workers, it’s important to provide them with useful tools as well. Find out which web applications could enhance collaboration and make it easier for your team to communicate.
Make Time for Small Talk
What people love about going to the office is that they’re able to chat with their co-workers during breaks. Talking about common interests with the people you work with is a great way to unwind. This is something your employees will likely miss once they transition into a remote-work environment.
One of the best ways to keep things interesting for staff members who work from home is to make time for small talk each day. Don’t just call employees when you have an assignment for them. Sometimes, you should call to talk. Ask them how they spend their free time, how their family is doing, and chat about the local and global news.
You can even host virtual events during work hours where everyone can take an hour or two to take a break from work and chat. Apart from helping boost the productivity of your workforce, this is a great way to build trust within your organisation.
Track Your Employees’ Progress
When your employees start working remotely, they’ll likely need help in the beginning to establish a good work routine. Help them by creating work schedules for each employee and providing them with deadlines for both simple and complex assignments.
Talk with your remote staff to find out how much work they do in a day. This will allow you to set reasonable expectations when you assign them new tasks. To ensure maximum productivity, encourage them to contact you for assistance and advice whenever they need it.
Bottom Line
In case most or all of your employees are used to coming to the office, it’s going to take a while before you fully transition into remote working. It will take a lot of effort to ensure that workers can collaborate efficiently while everyone is working from their home.
As a manager or business owner, you should let your employees know that they can easily reach you during work hours. Before anything, provide them with equipment and tools that’ll allow you to communicate properly.
