Business / Work From Home
In all likelihood, you never planned on having a remote team. Then the coronavirus arrived on domestic shores, and you suddenly had to change your operational model from the ground up. Usually, companies spend months preparing for such a transition. But in the final reckoning, they had just days.
Having vast swathes of the workforce tapping away at the computers at home isn’t ideal. You don’t get the same mixing and flourishing of ideas you have in the office. At the same time, there are a bunch of social issues with which you must contend, from office politics to remote employees feeling disengaged. Social isolation and less supervision are additional issues plaguing some firms.
As a leader or a manager, what can you do to improve the situation if returning to the office isn’t an option for you?
Make Remote Workers Full Employees
Remote workers can feel like they’re out on a bit of limb, separated from the rest of the team. As such, they can start to consider themselves lesser employees, not appreciated in the same way as the regular rank and file. And this psychology can ultimately negatively affect their performance.
Managers need to act fast. When employees believe that they’re somehow second-class citizens, they can flake off quickly, looking for organizations they believe will treat them better.
Hold regular conference calls and ensure that remote workers take a leading role. Include everyone in your team, and distribute guidelines for how office staff should interact with their remote counterparts.
Support Their IT
Remote workers need IT support to stay connected and happy. Technical staff must assist them when they face computer-related issues. If you don’t provide this level of service, the wages you’re paying will go to waste – just what you don’t want when you’re trying to recover from a pandemic.
Providing help with remote IT issues is very inexpensive. Typically, firms hire third-party agencies who then manage devices remotely using client software. Setups like this are ideal when you use a combination of company machines and employee notebooks.
Establish Rules Of Engagement
People naturally galvanize around particular social rules when they gather in person. But the same etiquettes tend to fall by the wayside when it comes to interpersonal interactions over platforms like Zoom and Slack. For that reason, bosses need to set clear “rules of engagement” from the start.
For example, you wouldn’t usually request employees include smiley-face emojis in their regular email communications. But you might require them when colleagues communicate with workers via internet chat. It helps to add interpersonal warmth you don’t get when you communicate via text alone.
Provide Opportunities For Career Development
Just because people are working from home doesn’t mean that career development has suddenly become unimportant. Quite the opposite. Firms that can still offer promotion opportunities put themselves at a competitive advantage in the labor market versus their rivals. Employees are much more likely to stay within the firm, correlating churn and recruitment costs.
Sharni-Marie
Sharni-Marie is the owner of the epic new marketing company Forj (M)arketing. She is a passionate marketer and business consultant with a huge vision to help small businesses forge their own way to future success. She loves to read and travel, always looking for experiences that broader her perspective.
