Best Practices to Keep Your Remote Employees Engaged

Many studies show that remote workers are happier in comparison to those working in an office. Yet, while the idea of remote work is exciting for many people, after a while, when people have their deadlines and commitments, it may not be enough of a productivity motivator.

For remote employees to be happy, productive and achieve their full potential, they continually need to be engaged, inspired, and motivated.

But how do you keep your remote employees engaged, motivated, and inspired all the time? 

You may think that it is not easy, but there are six simple methods you can apply to keep your remote employees engaged.

Connect Through Tech

For connecting with remote employees, you first need to cover all the basics. Make sure you provide your employees with hardware and software that will enable them to communicate with the rest of the team easily.

If it is possible, connect with your remote employees outside of the virtual space as well. Meeting face to face can help everyone feel more connected. It will give all employees time to meet each other on a more personal level, and these relationships will in return make collaboration more seamless. 

When it comes to other forms of communication, email should not be the only communication device you use. Instead, set up a team chat software like Slack or Microsoft Team. Software like this can help foster a more casual conversation among your employees. Making it easy for your employees to connect increases the likelihood that they will build a stronger bond, making them more engaged.

Remote Onboarding New Hires

Employee onboarding helps new hires acclimate to their new environment so that they can work productively and comfortably in the company. Since your employees are in different corners of the world, it is not likely that you will be able to bring them to your headquarters (of course, assuming that you have one). Instead, you can use video chat apps for face-to-face meetups with the new hires.

It is also essential to make the new employee feel welcomed to the team. You can do that by introducing them to other team members to help them build relationships with their coworkers more easily.

Additionally, you can create a remote “buddy system”. It means each of your new employees will have a dedicated buddy to help them meet the company, everyone on the team, or answer any of the questions they might have. This person should usually be on the same team as the new hire, but you should encourage that they meet people from other teams as well.

Setting Goals

For remote companies, setting measurable goals is a must for keeping track of employees' progress, their contribution to the company, and whether or not they were able to reach the desired goals. 

To set up measurable goals with remote teams, you need to identify measurable goals. Next, you need to break those goals into smaller tasks that an employee will be able to do. Also, the goals should have a start and an end date, and they have to be regularly improved, monitored, and adjusted as needed.

To monitor the progress on goals, you can use a remote employee desktop monitoring software. With it, you will observe how your employees are spending their time at work and how much time it takes them to complete specific tasks. With most remote employee desktop monitoring software, you can also set up task deadlines, making it even easier for you to follow the employees’ progress. Using work from home tracking software is one of the smartest – if not the smartest way – to measure goals and follow the progress of your remote employees.

Collaborate Efficiently

Collaboration in a team is essential, and it is an area that most of us need to improve.

To foster effective collaboration in your company, you need to encourage your employees to hear each other out and keep their conversations open at all times. 

Next, they need to bring all of their ideas into one place. Once everyone's thoughts are on the table, all of you need to fuse those ideas into a common one that you all can work towards achieving.

Regular Check-Ins

In a remote environment, you must regularly talk about the progress everyone is making. However, getting employees to sync at the same time can be a challenge. That is why you need to establish a habit of regularly checking-in with all team members. 

Check-ins are usually organized as one-on-one conversations between managers and employees about the progress they made on their tasks and projects. A check-in should not take longer than a few minutes per employee over video or text chat. Alternatively, you can also send out a structured questionnaire for employees to fill out and send over to you. But, we do recommend that you go with video chats, since it will give you more face time with everyone on your team.

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By using work from home monitoring tools, your check-ins can go much smoother as you can have an overview of how your remote employees are spending their days at work.

To engage your employees, you need to regularly check-in on them as that is one of the only ways you can gain insights into what needs to be changed so that they are more productive at work.

Remote Team Building

Remote team building brings your teams closer and creates stronger bonds between remote employees, as well as more engaging employees.

Some of these remote team building activities include:

• Playing online games together;
  

• Starting a book club;
  

• Sharing pics of your family, pets, most prized possessions, or anything other you feel is worth sharing with your teammates;
  

• Watching movies together via Netflix Party,
  

• Show and tell.

The options for virtual bonding are almost endless, and we are sure you will be able to come up with something that works for your team.

To Sum Up

Remote employees need to be engaged  to stay motivated and on the top of their game. 

To keep your employees engaged, you can do a lot, including connecting through tech, setting goals, improving the onboarding process for your new hires. You can also collaborate more efficiently, regularly checking in with everyone, and at the end of the day, have fun with your team.