Do you feel as if your remote workers are become less engaged and have no idea how to bring their engagement up? If so, we are here to help you have more engaged remote employees in no time.
Having engaged workers means more productivity and happier employees. Keep reading below for our employee engagement tips.
- Have Virtual Meetings and Events
The way remote teams manage regular communication between each other is through virtual meetings and calls. Some may even use email, instant messaging, or virtual event technology.
When the entire team is working during the day these virtual meetings and communication will go a long way. By holding these virtual events and meetings that bring the remote team together in one space you are encouraging group collaboration and engagement. This is one of the most effective employee engagement strategies there are.
Aside from business-related meetings you should go the extra mile to schedule and plan a virtual get-together for non-work related reasons. Work is stressful at times, so every time you talk to your employees virtually you don’t want it to have a tense feel. By creating casual chats and events you can create a space for your employees to engage with you and one another to talk about personal things and also work-related stress.
- Health and Wellness Should Be Encouraged
The health and wellness of your workers should be first and foremost when it comes to remote working. This is especially important at the end of the day. If one of your workers gets sick then they won’t be performing at their best.
Encouraging the health and wellness of your employees will show that you care about them even if they are working remotely. This will encourage employees to engage with their work and your business more because they will know they are valued.
One way to encourage health and wellness for your remote workers is to have an incentive. This incentive can be for your team to go outside for a break, cook a healthy meal, or even reward them for the exercise they do outside of work hours.
Another thing to do is to start a wellness program. This program could be getting your team to do yoga or even go on weekly walks together.
This will not only help to support and improve the health of your employees but it will make them more engaged with each other. You can even decide to have longer breaks in the middle of the day to allow your workers to have a longer workout time or a few more minutes to take a longer walk.
- Communicate With Each Other
Having effective ways to communicate will help to ensure that your employees stay engaged. You can create communication strategies with each remote worker by scheduling weekly check-ins to talk about what’s on their plate and any concerns they may have.
To make sure everyone is on the same page you should set goals for the month, quarter, and year. After setting goals hold a meeting and ask your employees if these goals are achievable and if not what can be done to make them achievable. This will help to see the goals through your employee’s eyes and to decide with them if the goals set are impossible.
Lastly, you should encourage two-way communication. This means that giving and getting feedback on projects will be encouraged.
You should also encourage customers to leave reviews and to give feedback. This will be effective communication to see what the customers want and the team will be engaged to find ways to make it happen.
- Ensure That Your Employees Feel Heard
All employees whether they work in the office or remotely deserve to feel appreciated. Not being in the office where you’re in their presence every day to give them a quick thank you may make these small gratitudes slip through the cracks. In truth, employees appreciate when they feel appreciated and valued by their higher-ups so you should make the effort to make them feel appreciated even when they work remotely.
To show your employees you appreciate them you can find small ways that can be done virtually. If it’s someone’s birthday try sending them a virtual birthday card to show that you are thinking about them.
If an employee goes above and beyond with their project or assignment you can schedule a one on one call to tell them how well they performed and that you appreciate them taking the extra mile. Overall you should be looking for simple ways to show your employees that you care about them and the work they do for your company.
Also, you should be ensuring that your employees feel as if they can come to talk to you about anything that may be bothering them, work-related or not. When it comes to remote work, miscommunication is very common. If your employee comes to talk to you then make sure you’re hearing what they are saying and taking the steps to resolve their concerns.
- Make Sure That All Communication Lines are Open
With remote employees, you will have workers that are all over the world working in different time zones. This could mean that a good number of your remote workers are working outside of the business hours of your headquarters.
When this happens some employees may feel as if they don’t have anyone to talk to when they have questions. This could also lead to them feeling unappreciated which can then lead to a lack of engagement.
To keep this from happening you should let your remote workers know that they can reach out at any time they have a question or concern. We understand that having someone on call 24/7 to offer support is impossible, but encouraging connection at any time through virtual means will make them feel appreciated.
It’s important to note that when remote workers are talking from all over the world they should have some banter. All work all the time isn’t good for employee engagement. If remote employees can banter and feel as if they are connecting it will make their workday better and lead to higher engagement in projects and among each other.
- Encourage Watercooler Talk With Your Remote Workers
As we stated above banter is important to keeping employees engaged and creating connections, but watercooler talk is also just as important. Remote workers can find it very easy to become isolated. Even as a higher-up you should be reaching out to your remote workers to have watercooler talk.
Watercooler talk is talking about things such as how their day is going, something you can relate to in your worker’s life, or even current events. Overall these talks should be based on non-work-related things.
This chit chat can be used to your advantage to show that you value the social interactions between your coworkers. It will also show each worker that you think the human interaction between the two of you is just as important as the numbers they crunch.
You can even decide to create a platform for you and your workers to have watercooler talk. This can be done using an instant message platform or even having open chatrooms that workers can pop in and out of.
- Build Trust With Your Employees
Building trust between your employees is a great way to keep them engaged. Your remote workers should be able to trust you to manage them as a remote team and you should be able to trust your remote team to get the work done.
By communicating regularly you can build trust easily. You can even tailor procedures to make your worker’s life easier and to show that you’re really listing to what they’re saying.
Another way to build trust is by being flexible with your remote workers. If they need an extra hour off for an appointment be flexible and understanding. Even providing feedback is a great way to build trust and to show your employee that they can do better.
- Teach Remote Workers How to Work with Each Other
You’re only one person and trying to find the time to answer every question from those in different timezones may feel impossible. This is why you should encourage your employees to reach out to one another for help and tips.
You can do this by setting digital workplace expectations such as schedules with others availability. You can even create a sheet to direct workers where to who they should ask their questions to.
Now You Know the Top Tips to Keep Employee Engagement up
We have given you the top tips on how to keep employee engagement up with your remote teams. Through building trust and caring about your worker’s well being you’re bound to have more engaged Employee Engagement in no time.
For more business and management tips be sure to check out the rest of our website.
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