Employee Engagement Among Remote Workers: 8 Key Practices

Working remotely has its perks and disadvantages. Some workers became more productive, engaged, and happier, while some were overwhelmed and challenged with the new setup.

As convenient as it may seem, remote working could affect employees’ level of engagement, the reason why they tend to be less productive, engaged, and satisfied. Therefore, companies must know the appropriate measures to boost employee engagement, such as conducting virtual events for teams and offering other remote work options.

That said, this presents an opportunity for the company to become proactive in their engagement efforts for their remote employees.

Best Practices To Boost Employee Engagement

If you’re a team leader thinking about how to bolster your remote team members’ levels of engagement effectively, you can consider many alternatives to help you achieve these goals. These may include some of the best practices listed below.

1. Promote Healthy Communication

One of the best ways to promote collaboration and team engagement in a remote workplace is to establish healthy communications between team members. Although some people would perceive this aspect as trivial compared to other things, utilizing efficient communication channels to connect with your team could significantly boost their morale and trust.

Having open communication with the team also lessens the risks of misunderstandings, which are common in a remote work setup. Additionally, communication tools could further streamline business processes and project management between team members. Through this, the team could brainstorm quickly and achieve key performance indicators (KPI) more effectively.

2. Schedule Meetings

Aside from creating healthy communications with the team, another ideal alternative you can consider is scheduling video conferencing meetings with your team members.

Plus, virtual staff meetings could be an excellent way for employees to keep in touch with each other and feel more present in the workplace aside from emails and digital chats.

3. Foster Collaboration And Teamwork

One of the common downsides of remote working is it makes employees feel lonelier and detached.

Although remote workers won’t have to deal with the hassles of transportation and health risks, they can only connect with their colleagues to a certain extent, making it more challenging to build rapport and relationships with other people. Thus, it’d help foster team connections by regularly having social hours, team-building activities online, and video chats to keep them engaged.

Planning in-person team retreats and outings could also help strengthen the bond between employees and satisfy them.

4. Empathize With The Employees

Connecting with your team members’ hardships could be challenging. Likewise, conveying your empathy isn’t as easy as it may seem. Due to the remote working setup, they won’t get the message or misinterpret your words. So, it’d help to learn how to empathize with your team members appropriately.

You can do that by following some of the tips listed below:

• Respecting time boundaries and out-of-the-work schedules
• Setting healthy boundaries
• Notifying them about performance expectations
• Keeping tabs on them
• Providing a helping hand to avoid burnout

5. Give Objective Feedback

If you’re a team leader, it’s essential to learn how to boost your team’s morale without making them feel bad and humiliated. As simple as it may seem, simple word choices could affect one’s disposition and self-perception, so this aspect is crucial.

To effectively make your team feel more valued and engaged at work, it helps if you give them objective feedback about their performances and provide pointers on how they could improve themselves.

Doing that and asking for their opinion could make your team feel more appreciated and happier, enhancing their engagement at work.

6. Recognize Their Efforts

Compared to employees working on-site, some remote workers tend to put in more work hours. But, not all of them are recognized for their hard work. Since no one will see them behind cameras and tools, no one would know the amount of effort they put into their work. Therefore, it’d help to make it a habit to recognize your team members for their actions.

You can do that by leveraging online recognition platforms to encourage the team to give recognition and comment on their team members in real-time. Providing team member recognition may also help serve as a top driver of team engagement in the company.

7. Keep Them Updated

Keeping your employees updated with current company guidelines and performance expectations plays a significant role in their engagement levels. Since no one would like to be held in the dark, your team would appreciate it if you’d keep them updated with team goals, group progress, and projects. Even if it’s for company news, including the team in water cooler chats could make them feel more involved and connected.

8. Encourage Them To Utilize Tools

Empowering your team members’ morale is the key to improving engagement and performance. Likewise, fueling their drive to do their best at work could benefit the employees and the company.

You’ll have to consider your team’s tools to access resources and company amenities first. Since some are limited to either PCs or company mobile phones, some may not have access to it. So, it’d help to find beneficial tools that give everyone equal opportunities to ease up their workloads.

Takeaway

Since remote working setup has been a new norm now in many companies, it significantly impacts the employees. Be it in their physical and mental aspects, up to their engagement and satisfaction levels with their work. Since team member engagement is crucial in ensuring one’s quality of work and performance at work, it’d help to learn how to boost it properly through the tips mentioned above.

Also Read: How To Manage A Software Development Team Working Remotely