With these empathic yet practical activities, you can make remote work effective and engaging for your staff.
Even if COVID-19 vaccines are widely available, 90% of HR leaders want employees to be able to work remotely. Despite the fact that most organizations have had months to design a remote-work experience that would keep employees productive and engaged, many still regard remote work agreements as temporary.
Few organizations have significant experience with large-scale remote work when it initially became popular.
Scenario planning in most organizations focuses on the operational responses required to ensure business continuity. Few of these plans take into account employees’ ability or bandwidth to focus on their work.
The move necessitated HR providing managers with instructions on how to guarantee staff receive the necessary support to deal with the crises’ emotional roller coaster while remaining productive and engaged. That advice remains unchanged. In fact, given how long the crisis has lasted, it has grown even more critical.
Keep an eye out for symptoms of employee dissatisfaction.
To gain visibility into employees’ difficulties and concerns, use both direct dialogues and indirect observations. Make it apparent to employees that you support and care for them at all times.
To facilitate regular dialogues between managers and employees; provide direction to managers on how to approach delicate topics resulting from the COVID-19 epidemic, such as alternative work models, job security and prospects, impact on staffing, and workplace stress.
Employees should be given the necessary tools.
Ensure that staff have the technology they require to succeed, which may include more than simply a phone and a laptop. Do your employees, for example, have suitable cameras to join virtual meetings?
Even if you don’t have a lot of technology and collaboration tools, you can empower your staff to work productively from home. However, don’t presume that individuals are familiar with virtual communications or that they are comfortable in that atmosphere. This is also self-directed learning, and might vary based on a personal level of knowledge between employees.
Recognize that virtual discussions are unique — and will never be flawless — but maintain a professional demeanor and respect for others. Be mindful that certain employees may find virtual conversations inconvenient and useless and instruct them on when and how to escalate ineffective virtual exchanges. If an issue hasn’t been resolved after six emails, the conversation may need to be escalated to a virtual meeting to be resolved.
Encourage people to talk.
Manager-employee conversation ensures that communication initiatives aid rather than hinder employee engagement. Employees’ comprehension of the organization’s decisions and their ramifications during change, according to Gartner research, is considerably more critical for the success of a change program than employees’ “liking” the change.
Employees get the information and perspective they need via two-way communication with managers and peers, which also allows them to express and process negative emotions and feel more in control. Managers can facilitate two-way conversations that focus on a realistic picture of both the positive and negative consequences of the present COVID-19 outbreak.
Have faith in your employees.
As a manager, the best thing you can do right now is suspend your disbelief and put your faith in your people to do the right thing, which they will if you create a supporting environment.
Managers may be anxious and even upset that they no longer have constant visibility into their people, but they should not react by micromanaging. That will only disengage, and fatigue already stressed employees. Don’t get caught up in apparent performance issues; once the crisis has passed, you’ll have plenty of opportunity to rely on established performance management procedures.
Reinforce the company’s values.
Employers were increasingly recognizing employees as significant stakeholders even before the crisis. During this crisis, you may demonstrate to employees that you want to be there for them in the long run.
Many businesses have spent the last few years developing a set of values that express how much they love their people and how vital it is for them to have excellent lives and experiences. Make sure that your personnel are aware of these ideals.
Continue to lead by example and urge employees to speak up when they see unethical behavior. Employee misconduct rises by as much as 33% during moments of uncertainty. Remind staff of the reporting channels for misconduct and the consequences for noncompliance. This will boost employee happiness, which has a big impact on psychological safety.
To generate clarity, use objectives.
During the disturbance, role definitions may begin to disintegrate, leaving employees confused of where to focus their efforts. Concentrate on the tasks that staff should be completing. To provide employees more clarity — and to enhance employee engagement — focus on outcomes rather than processes.
Concentrate on results rather than methods.
Allow employees to accomplish their work in the most convenient and productive manner for them in the distant terrain, where many people juggle work and family commitments from the comfort of their own homes.
It’s possible that your 9 a.m. team meeting may have to be canceled, or that you’ll have to skip a lengthy approval process. Use virtual tools whenever possible and schedule communication at a mutually convenient time. Allowing teams to be flexible allows them to execute their tasks in their own unique way.
As a manager, you must pay less attention to the process and more attention to what is being accomplished. Simply tell your staff what you expect them to do.
Boost your visibility
Effective acknowledgment not only inspires the recipient, but it also sends a powerful message to other employees about the types of actions they should replicate. Consider public acknowledgement, symbols of appreciation, development opportunities, and low-cost benefits as alternatives to monetary rewards. Managers in firms experiencing a slowdown might use this time to create employee development opportunities.
Use the Most Up-to-Date Software and Applications
In recent years, technology has advanced significantly. While this year has been full of unexpected twists and turns, the quarantine imposed in many areas could not have come at a better moment for technology.
There are a variety of ways to connect, divert, and get work done from the comfort of your own home, ranging from devices for binge-watching television shows to video conferencing software. Naturally, this means you’ll have access to a plethora of products and services designed to make working with remote staff easier.
Take a look at the many chores you need to complete for your remote workers each day. Next, see what programs are available to assist you in resolving frequent issues with these chores.
There are a plethora of programs out there waiting to be discovered, whether you need help tracking the hours a person works from home or software that includes a thorough pay stub generator. With a little research, you can quickly find the proper solutions to make daily duties much easier for you in the future.
