The business trend of working remotely has been accelerated recently because of the coronavirus pandemic. Many employers are struggling to adapt to this sudden change and manage their teams effectively so thateveryone is still working productively despite the disruption. Fortunately, there are plenty of solutions to this predicament. For this reason, we encourage you to keep reading if you would like to find out some different tips and tricks for managing your employees whilst working remotely.
Regular Engagement
One of the main problems with working remotely is the breakdown of communication. It’s much harder to convey information over the internet because tone can be misconstrued, and instigating conversation isn’t as effortless. Therefore, employers need to go out of their way to regularly engage with staff. Consistent interaction means that you know whether your employees are on track or if they need help. It also keeps everyone connected, which is important during these isolating times.
Setting Expectations
It has always been crucial to set expectations for your employees. This means outlining what they need to accomplish every day/week/month and to what standard, plus the company’s aspirations. By giving your employees something distinct to work towards, they are far more likely to remain focused – even when working from home with lots of distractions. Just remember to be realistic. Giving staff too much or too little to do will reduce their productivity.
Employee Benefits
Everyone knows that employee benefits are essential for good management. Not only do they provide incentives which encourage your staff to work harder but also reduce turnover and increase job satisfaction.However, coronavirus has made it much harder to implement these schemes. Luckily, businesses can now use an employee benefit platform to provide these incentives whilst everyone works remotely. This software has streamlined the online process and made it much more accessible.As such, your workers are still motivated to work hard, even as they complete the job remotely.
Daily Meetings
Meetings are important for keeping everyone on track and communicating information. Though it’s not as straightforward to conduct meetings whilst working remotely, thankfully software like Zoom has recently been introduced. Thisallows business teams to schedule weekly and daily video calls. We recommend conducting a morning meeting every day to get your team into the working mindset and keep one another updated on progress.
Video Coaching
Consistently training your employees is important to ensure their knowledge is kept updated and so they maintain a high standard of work. Once again, however, coronavirus has placed a barrier in the way of training. For this reason, employers will need to learn how to remotely coach their workers. This could include anything from webinars to one-to-one meetings. It’s also a brilliant way to check how your employees are coping with remote working.
Online Tools
It’s much harder for business teams to work collaboratively when working remotely. As a result, managers need to ensure their employees have been supplied with the appropriate online tools to communicate and share documents with one another. For example, Trello is a popular task management software which allows people to organise their teams and workload. Relying solely on email will significantly reduce everyone’s productivity.
Be Available
These are stress-inducing times and so your employees are probably going to be more anxious than usual. As such, employers must be available to staff – you should always be communicating and checking up on them. If your workers feel supported, they will be much happier and productive.
These are some of our top tips for managing your employees effectively when working remotely. Though coronavirus has created some obstacles, there are plenty of ways to overcome them.
