Remote work has become increasingly more popular over the last several years, and will only continue to rise as businesses recognize the significant benefits. It’s important, however, for companies to make sure they set up a solid work environment for their remote employees.
What are some of the best practices for businesses with employees who work remotely? Here are seven tips to get you started.
1. Communicate With Your Remote Workers
Communication is important for any business with remote workers. Utilizing advanced technologies to seamlessly keep the team engaged and interacting with each other is essential. SMS text messaging can allow for companies to keep their employees well informed on the latest that is happening within the business, while also providing reminders for important meetings or company Zoom calls that are happening throughout the day.
2. Request Feedback From Your Remote Workers
The only way to learn about what isn’t working is to ask. Getting feedback from your remote employees can be a game-changer for how you run your business. Perhaps they don’t have the necessary resources to do their job, or maybe they are struggling because they don’t have the proper setup at home.
It could also be structural situations where they find it difficult to get meetings coordinated with the management team. Find out what isn’t working by asking your employees, and start implementing new changes.
3. Provide Tools For Your Remote Workers
Providing the necessary tools and resources to your remote employees is key to their work environment. If you expect them to do their jobs, they need to be fully equipped. Make sure that you are considering how your company plans to make a smooth transition to a digital environment by first considering what your employees need.
Programs such as Mailchimp or Hootsuite can help your social marketing team automate scheduling and increase productivity. Customer relationship management systems (CRM) are an excellent tool for your sales team to automate the conversion process for generating leads, following up, and closing on any new sales. Project management software can provide your team with accurate reporting and organizational skills to ensure that projects are getting done seamlessly.
4. Set Boundaries with Remote Workers
Working remotely can make it incredibly hard to separate work life from personal life. Your employees may be working from home, making it difficult to properly end the workday. To avoid employee burnout, have your employees set up definitive boundaries.
This could be encouraging proper self-care, limiting hours of availability so as to not be on-call 24/7, or even adding an email embargo when they are taking a vacation. Boundaries are healthy for every person, including in the professional setting.
5. Improve Work Culture with Remote Workers
It can be pretty difficult to implement a great work culture – especially if your employees are not in the same building. They may even be in different time zones, which makes it increasingly more difficult. By implementing different types of team-building activities or monthly happy hours through Zoom, your staff can connect with one another outside of the work environment.
6. Learn About Prefered Work Environments with Remote Workers
Every one of your employees has a different way of how they prefer to do their job. Some people require a substantial amount of communication and prefer working as part of a team. Others feel like they are more productive when they can work solo on a project and get it done efficiently.
Learn about your employees and figure out how each remote position prefers to work. The more you can cater to their needs, the better they will ultimately be at their roles.
Recognize Your Remote Workers
Showing appreciation for the hard work of your employees might seem difficult but is actually fairly simple. You don’t have to host some giant award ceremony every month to recognize your remote employees. It can be something as simple as shooting out a text message to the company, recognizing one of your employees for reaching their quarterly goal or sending a company-wide email to congratulate them on a recent engagement in their personal life.
Doing something like this shows that you have taken time out of your day to acknowledge them, which can speak volumes when improving the morale of your remote employees.
Summary
If you want to begin improving the environment of your remote employees, it starts by understanding what they need, both personally and professionally. Ask them what could be changed so you can find ways to implement new strategies. Improve communication with new technologies. And most importantly, provide opportunities for a good work-life balance.
