Keeping remote employees productive can be a challenging task. Therefore, you need to implement strategies that will prevent your employees from being unproductive. Below you will find seven effective strategies that will boost your remote employee’s productivity.
1. Facilitate communication
To make sure your employees are productive, you need to ensure effective communication at work because strong collaboration and effective communication are essential for any workforce to be productive. This is especially true for remote workforces since they can’t communicate face-to-face which makes them more isolated.
The ideal way to solve the isolation problem is to talk to your remote team about topics that are unrelated to work since this will help you to form bonds and remove the isolation.
However, it’s important to note that you should strike a balance between being too casual and formal.
2. Company Culture Optimization For Remote Teams
One of the most challenging components of productivity in remote work is committing to the company’s culture and mission outside of the typical work environment. Therefore, it’s critical to emphasize important cultural aspects and make sure the team adapts to them even in the absence of them.
These actions can help company cultures be optimized for remote teams:
Establish flexible work hours to better promote employee work-life balance, which is a key factor in higher productivity.
Provide significant financial incentives for mental and physical health in order to promote employee wellness, which will increase productivity.
Create policies and practices that complement core business principles and restore employee commitment to shared objectives.
3. Avoid overloading your employees
When an employee works from the office, management can quickly determine if they are overworked. You may have seen that the employee always leaves late, for example. You rarely have this type of information while working with remote employees. If the appropriate safety measures are not taken, employees could become overworked.
If you’re forced to provide a remote worker with urgent work, find out how it may impact their other responsibilities. The employee can afterward give you an estimate of the amount of time they anticipate spending on the responsibilities.
Sending excessive numbers of emails is another thing you should tell your team to avoid doing.
4. Be Prepared To Handle Technical Issues
Most companies have a technical support team to assist employees with any technical problems they may come across. Remote teams might be scattered, needing a special strategy for handling technology problems.
It is your responsibility as a manager to make sure that your team does not fall behind schedule as a result of a team member’s inability to accomplish their tasks because of technical problems. One approach might be to locate service providers around each team member who would be accessible in the event of a technology issue.
5. Implement team-building exercises
Employees can talk about everything aside from work during weekly team calls, which helps to make everyone happy. A great way to increase communication outside of the workplace is with a virtual group lunch. It’s also a fantastic idea to have a virtual movie or game night.
By taking part in these events, employees may form bonds and get to know each other outside of their work environment. These teams accomplish more than ones where the members are not familiar with each other.
6. Use Software that Supports Remote Teams
In order to manage remote teams, it is essential to invest in top-notch performance management software. Numerous employee engagement software
provides a wealth of collaboration and engagement tools for workers. You might also use e-forms, automated processes, and other effective solutions to grow your company and increase efficiency among your remote workers.
These technologies can also be used to get anonymous input and identify problems that employees are having. These tools can be used to monitor staff productivity and assess the quality of each employee’s work.
7. Avoid micromanagement
Managing your team members without being physically present with them might be challenging. You could think you need to keep an eye on them more and supervise assignments to make sure they’re completed.
However, the reality is that micromanaging your team can have a very bad impact.
Employees who feel micromanaged might:
- Feel less driven and become less productive
- Become frustrated
- Lose confidence
- Lose creativity
- They burn out
