Seven ways to improve employee engagement for remote teams

Want to improve employee engagement, especially with your remote team—but how? The virtual office has recently become a lonely and quiet place as more and more businesses are now moving to remote or hybrid offices. In addition, with the advent of technology-heavy software and the need for more collaboration platforms, companies are now suffocated with new concepts and business models that can help keep their employees engaged and motivated.

Now everyone wants to be on a remote team

The latest FlexJobs 10th Annual Survey 2021 revealed that some 58% of respondents indicated they want to be full-time remote workers in the post-pandemic economy. What’s more, approximately 39% currently want a hybrid work environment. This accumulated over 97% of current employees willing to work remotely.

With masses of employees now wanting to work from home or wherever they want, companies are faced with a challenge that will help them keep staff engaged in their work with their colleagues and managers.

What’s the deal with employees who quit to work remotely?

While more and more employees are leaving their jobs in search of better opportunities or to start their own businesses, employers are creating attractive job roles and employee benefits that will help retain top talent as a result of the severe labor shortage. hand.

Yet while working from home may have its advantages, there comes a time and place when employee engagement begins to fade. In addition, working with remote teams spread across different regions will require leakage of software innovation and planning.

Tech-savvy business software

Fortunately, with the high demand for technology business software, you can easily engage your teams and collaborate on new projects and ideas.

Here’s a quick look at seven simple ways business owners and HR managers can improve employee engagement for remote teams.

Improve employee engagement — establish a strategy

Before you, as an employer or business leader, can begin to create a plan to help improve employee engagement, you will need to create a strategy to help you identify the pitfalls and any flaws within the current business model.

From the start, consider how your employees currently work and what things you’ve done in the past few months to make their transition from in-office work to online remote work more comfortable.

Consider the happy employee in your strategy

Employees who are satisfied with their work will usually go out of their way to do more. In order for you as a business owner to achieve everything you want and need to do – you want satisfied employees. First, see which systems are currently not working properly to improve employee productivity and contribution. Then ask, “How can I use technology and some leadership skills to make my employees feel motivated?”

Communication 101 — The simplest strategy for remote teams

An older study conducted by the Hay Group, now known as Forn Kerry, found that employees who are engaged and use effective communication patterns can generate more revenue than their disengaged counterparts.

While the study reveals the importance of effective communication, business owners and team managers should encourage remote employees to communicate more effectively with each other and vice versa.

Creating channels that allow for more transparency can help improve productivity, creativity, improve growth, and business owners can clearly state business goals.

Refine your remote worker training and the new system

Remote employees who receive minimal introduction to the new systems, or all members of the onboarding team, will feel left out. Improving communication is just one of many ways to help them see where the company is headed and how it can get there.

But while this can help teams bond with each other or communicate more effectively, it’s also considered necessary for business owners to encourage employees to be more transparent about their work and find ways to help the business to grow.

Communication remains one of the main aspects of many teams. However, as telecommuting becomes more common among small and large businesses, communication practices must be improved or implemented to help employees become more engaged.

Collaboration software to connect remote employees

Nowadays, remote workers can share anything over the Internet. What’s more, with the advancement of collaboration software during the pandemic, it’s become easier and much more affordable to implement tech-savvy tools that can boost productivity and spark new ideas.

As platforms become more advanced, team managers can now have all their remote members work from a single platform through which they can communicate with each other and share insights.

Make your software easy to use

Collaboration software can contain a variety of features, and it’s up to the business owner or team manager to decide which one will work best for their employees. Of course, it’s a good idea to consider the needs of your business, but also what will be easiest for employees to use and how it will affect their work.

There is a long list of questions that you need to be able to answer first before making a final decision. But when most employees work from home or on a hybrid basis, adding structure to a somewhat uneven situation will help employees generate solution-based ideas among themselves and help improve engagement.

Career development affects employee engagement

While it may not seem like minimal career development will affect employee engagement, you may want to reconsider the fact that around 66% of employees leave their jobs if they don’t feel appreciated or their work is appreciated.

Being valued, appreciated and noticed by managers and owners helps employees find new ways they can advance their careers, creating new opportunities for growth and development.

Employees are more likely to be more engaged with each other or perhaps with their superiors if there is room for growth and career advancement. It’s one of the few ways to create a plan or business model that keeps employee growth in mind, making it easy for both parties to bounce ideas back and forth.

The great thing is that depending on the business and the size of the team, career development opportunities can come in different ways. So this is where you need to look for ways to maintain the interest of current members and their needs as an employer or team manager.

Through these methods, one will also create a sense of concern by making employees feel that they are valued and their contributions are valued.

Create a space for more participation to improve employee engagement

Allowing employees to be more involved in different aspects of the business helps empower them and communicate propositions.

A good definition of employee involvement might be “When employees participate directly to help an organization fulfill its mission and achieve its goals by applying their ideas, experiences, and efforts to problem solving and decision making.”

How will you maintain interaction between your in-office and remote teams?

There are different ways to create a space for greater employee involvement; the most common is creating a suggestion box or, in the digital world, sending suggestion forms to employees.

Engaging with employees from an executive or management perspective will pave the way for better business development that will enable them to succeed in their respective job roles. Just as employee involvement can help improve engagement, the same should be considered for business owners.

Clearly stating job specifications, what will be expected of them, and communicating appropriate information generally reinforces the importance of employee engagement and related problem-solving abilities.

Be a leader, not just a boss

Another way to improve employee engagement is to ensure that you, as a business owner or perhaps a manager, lead the team’s efforts rather than watching over them as a boss or domineering figure.

Boss magazine describes the importance of being a leader as someone who shares insights, and corporate morale inspires employees through motivation and engagement. In a time when we can all feel disconnected, even with the advent of social and professional collaboration platforms, leaders need to help their employees instead of dragging them down.

Investing more in your employees, even if they sit halfway around the world, can help establish a sense of interest and thought process. Through this, employers can now realize the value of their staff members and how they can contribute to the company’s goals.

Every employee can have a significant impact on your business. If you lead by example and transparency, employees can share a collective understanding of the business and how their ideas can help move the business forward.

A business identity for engaging remote teams

It may not sound like it would matter, but creating a business identity, even in a virtual work environment, helps shape the collective intelligence of the business. As an employer, you have a concrete idea of ​​what you want your business to be and a plan for how you will get there.

By using a business identity, you’ll now be able to have employees engaged in ways that can reflect your core values, from how they work with clients, customers or suppliers, to how they manage stressful projects and generate more leads.

There are different ways one can approach the concept of business identity, but ultimately it comes down to how you as an employer value and trust your team to build on the foundation you’ve already laid.

Employees who can associate with the business identity will not only be willing to work longer for the company, but also put them in a space where they can feel motivated and contribute to the growing needs of the business.

The Takeaway

Remote working has changed the business landscape forever, and now more than ever, employees are looking for work roles that will allow them the option to work from home or perhaps in a hybrid environment.

While the remote work movement has created new challenges for business owners and team managers, it has also highlighted the importance of employee engagement and how business owners can create channels to see their employees more motivated and engaged.

We were interrupted — we need engagement for remote teams

While technology has improved our lives in various ways, it has become clear that it also divides us from each other. In the fast-paced world of online business and telecommuting, keeping employees interested or encouraged to work from their homes doesn’t have to get in the way of business success.

Business owners should have a clear strategy on how they can improve employee engagement. More engaged employees are likely to stay longer in their current job position. It all depends on how much you value encouraging remote workers.

Image Credit: Photo by Charles Deluvio on Unsplash; Thank you!

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