How productive has your remote workforce been during the pandemic? While remote employees may enjoy the freedom and flexibility of working from home, some studies suggest downsides are inevitable. Remote work set-up required HR to offer managers specific guidance on how to ensure employees get the essential support to tackle the emotional roller coaster of this crisis – and are productive and engaged. Regardless of whether you are a small company or a much larger enterprise, you are likely to encounter the same number of challenges when it comes to managing your remote workforce.
Below, we have compiled a few good tips and tricks for increasing productivity in a remote work setup:
Provide tools that bring employees together – no matter where they work.
Your business’s technology tools and devices should help employees create, connect, and collaborate with people inside and outside your company. Online meetings must be quick and easy to set up. They should also be able to share files, edit together in real-time, and be productive wherever they are, on any device.
Upskill and reskill your employees
Adaptability and a learning mindset will be the key to navigating the changes ahead. Craft talent strategy that develops employees’ critical digital and cognitive abilities, their social and emotional skills, and their capability and resilience. Use your training budget to make skill building a key strategic lever for adapting to the new normal. Finally, focus on the flexibility of your learning ecosystem: make it both more digital and more accessible to your employees.
Communicate expectations effectively
Creating a deadline is easy; creating a realistic deadline is much more difficult. Having a deep understanding of what each employee does will make the deadline-setting process go smoothly. Don’t just plop down expectations in front of your employees without really looking at it from their perspective. Expectations cannot be mandates; there must be some co-creative juice along the way. Coming at expectations from a positive standpoint makes productivity soar.
Keep the conversation alive
Having regular conversations without the formality of an annual review contributes to an atmosphere of confidence. Suddenly it is easier for both employee and manager to discuss concerns and do course corrections. Draw the best out of your employees through collaboration. Collaboration means checking in with the employee on how the work is progressing and adjusting when necessary.
Create new hyper-relevant recognition programs.
With employees adjusting to remote work, you need to recognize the challenges of the new normal. Recognizing people for their commitment to challenging circumstances give employees a sense of what’s important and where to focus. Create an atmosphere or a culture that allows everyone to be themselves and to be able to celebrate success in fun ways!
Take work-life balance seriously.
Work-life balance is an important aspect of a healthy work environment. Remote work has blurred the line between work and home. It is therefore vital to set boundaries with technology. Give your employees a brain break and help them refresh.
Final Thoughts
Understand that disruption and change are constant, so prioritize and invest in the strengths of your culture and the well-being of your employees. Follow the tips above and make your employees’ productivity soar in a remote work setup.
ABOUT ASEAMETRICS
ASEAMETRICS is an HR Consulting firm established to provide solutions to help companies solve talent-related business problems. They are an expert at providing technology-based solutions to help companies identify, develop, and manage the human resource for business success, today and in the future.
Integrated into the company’s high-impact services are advanced technologies through HR Avatar (for E-Testing), Udemy (for E-Learning and Competency Development), Arbinger (for E-Learning – Mindset Change), Withiii (E-Organizational Development), ESM (E-Strategy Management), and HopeChat VP (E-Psychological Services).
