With the meteoric rise of remote work in the past few years, it’s worth knowing how to manage your employees from afar.
The COVID-19 pandemic has undeniably accelerated the movement towards digital workplaces, and other factors such as climate change will ensure that more people are working from home than ever before in the next few years.
So what exactly does that mean for your business?
The shift towards remote work can have significant implications for the way businesses are run; from Zoom meetings to project management and employee time monitoring software, there’s a lot to get used to at every level of an organization.
But arguably, one of the most pressing emerging issues is how to retain and incentivize remote workers to ensure your company continues to thrive even amidst great uncertainty.
Flexible Work
If you want to keep hold of your employees when they work from home, it’s a good idea to offer them favorable work conditions.
What does that mean, exactly?
Well, you can empower your employees by giving them control over their work schedule to some degree. While in the office, you can rightly expect employees to work a fixed schedule, clocking in at the same time each day; this is a little more tricky when your workforce is online.
Everyone has a different home life, be it hectic or tranquil; it’s important that they feel like they can show up to work in the right frame of mind. If one of your employees has to take their kids to sports practice in the morning because they can’t find a babysitter, are you going to punish them for doing that instead of starting work?
You could, of course, but that will likely sour the relationship and could even encourage that employee to look elsewhere since many jobs offer flexible working hours to suit the worker’s lifestyle.
As such, you should try to offer flexible work hours within reason so that your employees can give you 100% whenever they clock in.
Use the Right Software
Won’t your employees slack off if you give them the flexibility to work to their own schedule?
It’s a possibility, yes.
But there is a solution: employee time monitoring software.
With time tracking software, you can actually see what your employees are working (or not working) on in real-time. This will allow you to make any necessary changes on the fly to facilitate optimal productivity.
For some workers, just knowing that their time is being tracked when they show up for work will minimize procrastination and maximize their overall output.
Task management tools can also be useful software for keeping your workforce moving in the same direction and streamlining your processes.
If you want to keep your employees content and on the payroll, then it’s a good idea to keep up with the times and simplify their work-life as much as possible. With software such as Asana and Trello, you can create a virtual pipeline for individual work tasks and projects, which can make it easy for workers to thrive.
Some software even incentivizes hard work through reward systems which can be an easy way for you to get more out of your employees.
Acknowledge Effort
It’s no secret that positive reinforcement pays dividends in the world of work.
Acknowledging effort and good work is a surefire way to give your employees an instant boost without having to shell out money.
Words can go a long way, especially when they come from your superior. The key is to be specific.
You want to praise a specific quality about the employee or something that they’ve directly contributed to a project that helped make it a resounding success.
Make them feel like they’re helping drive the company forward and that they are an integral part of the journey to wherever your business may be heading.
Incentivize Productivity
While verbal and written praise can go a long way, there’s no denying that money talks too.
By offering a competitive salary to your employees along with occasional promotions and bonuses, you can incentivize productivity and potentially boost the company’s retention rate.
After all, who doesn’t want to work for a company that pays well and rewards hard work with bonuses and promotions?
The last thing you want your employees to feel – especially when they’re working remotely – is that they are in a dead-end job going nowhere fast.
How do you avoid this?
By making them aware of how awesome it is to work for your company and how high the ceiling is for their potential and earnings.
Communicate Clearly
If there’s one downside to working remotely, it’s that miscommunication seems to happen more frequently.
It can be avoided, of course, but only if you make a deliberate effort to communicate clearly and frequently.
If you fail to do so, you’ll end up with employees handing in projects that don’t align with your expectations or workers feeling confused and unsure how to proceed.
To avoid this and to keep your workers on board with everything you’re trying to accomplish, set up regular video calls and meetings to hash out the details of the latest project/s.
Always open up the floor to questions and, if possible, start an open door policy at a particular time during the day in which workers can discuss any problems they may have with you.
If you can clearly and consistently get the message across to your employees, then they will be able to get the work done on time and to the standards you expect. This could, in turn, lead to more praise/financial incentives for them, along with a feeling of accomplishment that should translate to a better employee retention rate for you.
Final Word
Boosting employee retention of remote workers requires flexibility on the company’s part, so an adaptable approach is recommended if you’re a business owner.
To keep your employees content, try offering up a flexible work schedule, praising their efforts often, and incentivizing productivity with financial rewards.
Author: Bojana
BIO:
Bojana is a Content Writer at Workplus, with a background in marketing and journalism. She enjoys writing about productivity, remote work, and the evolving jobs economy.