The COVID-19 crisis brought on a remote working situation for almost every business. Many of us had to face numerous challenges when working remotely. Although it was a difficult transition at first, many companies were able to adapt and manage to create a successful virtual work environment, which proved to be even more effective than regular work schedules. Due to this, many companies have decided to shift to remote working for good, as it saves resources and improves employee efficiency. Although virtual working comes with its benefits, to really make remote working a success, there are hurdles that are yet to be overcome. There are many factors you need to consider when working on your company’s remote work integration plan, and many ways you can improve remote workers’ efficiency, some of which are given below.
1. Use Technological Resources
In the era of technological advancements, it would be a mistake not to benefit from the numerous resources available to us. A great way to keep your remote employees connected is by using virtual communication channels such as Zoom, Slack, MS Teams, Asana, etc. These apps make sure the team is connected throughout projects and can easily communicate with each other to improve seamless work effort between team members.
2. Social Interaction Is Important
Although there are numerous benefits of remote work, many employees complain of being lonely because of being cooped up at home with no social interaction with co-workers and friends. A way to remedy this is to keep your employees socially engaged with the help of social hours, virtual team-building activities, and video calls and conferences. You can also try to plan in-person outings and company retreats to strengthen team connections and boost employee morale.
3. Two-way Communication
Ensure that you make your employees feel heard and valued, two-way communication is essential if you want things to go smoothly. Employees are said to work better when they’re happier and satisfied with their job. Welcome employee feedback, and provide constructive feedback of your own to help your remote workers improve performance.
4. Provide Employees Assistance Tools
It’s your job as an employer or manager to ensure your team feels confident and has the necessary tools and training for performing their tasks effectively. Especially when hiring newbies, you should get them proper training before they can be given tasks to complete. You can get this done by ensuring that you have a remote employee onboarding checklist to keep track of new recruits and their training progress. In addition, you will need to provide them with essential tools, whether it’s phones and laptops or internet capabilities. Providing these to your employees will enable them to work from home without any problems.
5. Develop A Remote Work Policy
A remote work policy will ensure essential considerations are well planned and documented to make the process of remote working as efficient as possible. Whether it’s employee productivity, infrastructure, expenses, and technological requirements or security protocols for remote workers, each factor has to be optimized in order to run a smooth virtual system.
It’s obvious that remote work will only continue to grow from this point. Even with the decrease in the severity of the pandemic, and life getting back to normal, most businesses still prefer to keep their work remote because of the many benefits it provides. Therefore, it’s of essence that you integrate efficient systems to assist your virtual team members to work their best.
