It is not an easy task to create an employee engagement for business leaders. The activity has become all the more challenging as people are working from remote locations now.

A co-founder of an employee engagement platform says that employee engagement became important with time as countries went into a lockdown. Businesses were finding it challenging to keep up with their workforce, which was working remotely. Many of the industry leaders believe that remote workers are limited these days, but it is highly tempting to think that the remote work culture is likely to extend even in the future.

It is estimated that more than half of the workforce is likely to work from home at least three days a week, even after the pandemic. Therefore, most companies believe that remote work has become a permanent part of the future.

Even when the world is gradually returning to neutral, there are several employees who are opting for extended work from home, which has become a necessity for modern HR leaders to gain learning about the new methods of enhancing the remote work methods.

Hence, this article suggests some simple tips to make sure that all your employees working from home are happy also achieving a high level of performance.

Employee Engagement is Necessary

Employee engagement is defined traditionally as a sense of loyalty, commitment, and emotional intelligence to their workplace. The more engaged an employee is, the more likely they are to improve their efficiency, job satisfaction, and the zeal to go above and beyond their abilities to meet the expectations of the organization.

As more and more businesses are going remote today, HR professionals are finding it difficult to find out the new and more tangible ways to keep their employees happy without getting into face to face interactions. Here are some of the tips.

 Avoid Micromanagement

The very first thing that the business leaders must do is to avoid micromanagement for their teams. Remote working culture raises concerns for the managers about the productivity levels of the employees.  The new managers find it difficult to manage their new job transitions and are more likely to make their employees’ lives more uncomfortable.

In most cases, when the managers do not see a report, it is difficult for them to understand that their employees are working. There is also a misconception that the employees that work remotely are lazy, and all these factors eventually force the managers to micromanagement.

Instead of micromanagement. Here are some of the things that the managers can do:

• Change performance management metrics: Instead of forcing the employees to complete a task, develop a system where everyone is made accountable to meet their goals.
• The next thing you can do is to share what is expected from the employees. This will help you to establish boundaries with your remote staff.
• In order to compensate for the structure that you did not expect as before, the lack of physical presence, you need to implement highly clear SOP’s, check-ins, or meetings.

You also need to shorten the hierarchy levels; otherwise, most of the staff working remotely will spend a lot of time waiting for the approvals.

Show Transparency

Transparency should not be limited to workflows. Rather, it is a habit of high performing leaders. Transparency must be inculcated in the daily routines of the employees and should begin with everyday communication with their employees.

All this becomes more challenging at the time of a crisis, and people are more likely to get hysteria and panic. The present situation has also made employees feel too anxious and stressed to perform optimally and to lead to many people feeling burned out.

It is thus important for the managers to practice transparency and communicate all the concerns with their employees. This can be done by developing judgement-free communication channels so that it becomes easy to identify and understand the challenges faced by the employees who are working remotely.

Make your Rewards and Recognition Program Go Digital

The organizations are fighting to manage the remote employees and the remote workforce. At the same time, the employees desire to be recognized 30% more during the most challenging times.

Positive and encouraging energy is needed, especially when the employees are dealing with a new crisis in working in a new work setting. Getting the remote employees engaged can be complicated for the businesses as well. It is also a time-consuming process and expensive for businesses. Thus it is important to set down some standards when it comes to remote rewards and recognition programs. Here are some of the ways to make the reward program digital.

• It is important that the recognition takes place publicly, even if it is virtual.
• Recognition that is at the right time and in the right frequency is important. Remote employees must be appreciated immediately after the good work they have done.

Give Priority to Employee Wellness

It was found that employees who are in good health are more productive, active and participates proactively in team activities.  This is the reason why sincwe2020, businesses have been laying a major emphasis on the health and wellbeing of the employees.

It is also important that not only the physical wellbeing must be considered, it is also important to take into account the mental wellbeing of the person. In the absence of good mental health, issues can arise in performance, productivity, and disagreement.

Thus, it is recommended that to build a culture that truly empowers the employees to lead a life that is of optimal health and wellbeing. The leaders must focus on workplace health aspects such as:

• Priorities break so that the working employees get relied upon from the long hours of work.
• Businesses must provide office setup assistance to all their employees as working from home can be highly tiresome for the employees. The office must provide high-quality chairs and sturdy furniture to set up an office at home for the employees.
• Holding seminars on mental health and wellbeing can be valuable for the employees.

Make Communication Meaningful

Communication plays a key role in the overall team productivity, especially when all the team members are working remotely.  Thus, businesses today need a well-planned communication strategy to keep the workflows smooth and seamless.

Good communication promotes a greater level of transparency which helps the team members to do great work. For this, one of the most important things is to have is an agile toolbox to increase the productivity of the overall team.

Get Ready for the Extended Remote Work  

Businesses to consider and acknowledge that the remote work culture will stay for a longer time than it was ever expected. A shared virtual space is all that is needed where all the team members can share their ideas, concepts, and reports about their tasks. Businesses need to consider the new working style and employee engagement.

Source – Forbes