Recent global events have led to a big change in the world of work. All across the world, we’ve seen more and more businesses making the switch to remote work, leaving their traditional office environments and workplaces behind and starting to conduct their operations remotely, with workers able to operate from the comfort of their own homes and other locations.
It is expected that remote work will become increasingly commonplace in the future, and this can bring both benefits and challenges for businesses to consider. On the positive side, having remote teams leads to lower costs in terms of owning, hiring, and maintaining actual physical workplaces, and there are also lower risks of having to deal with legal claims associated with injuries at work too.
On the downside, however, it has clearly been a challenge for many companies to make the switch to remote work. Workers in many areas and industries have been proven to be less productive and less engaged when working remotely, leading to missed deadlines, failed projects, unnecessary delays, and reductions in profits too. Here are some ways you can counter this and keep your teams motivated.
Reinforce the Mission
It may sound simple, but the fact of the matter is that workers tend to be more engaged and productive when they have a clear mission and set goals ahead of them. If a worker knows why they’re doing something, they’ll naturally feel more motivated to go through with it, but targets, missions, and goals can become cloudy and less clear when working remotely, so it’s up to bosses and managers to reinforce the mission at every opportunity.
Make use of video calls, conferences, and feedback sessions to remind employees of why they need to carry out their tasks and complete their projects on time, reinforce the importance of each task, emphasize how and why your company exists and what sort of mark you can make on the world. In essence, you need to tell employees why their efforts matter, and it’s something that needs to be stated again and again.
Make Team-Building a Priority
Teamwork and general collaboration are often key to running a successful business in modern times, but when teams are physically separated and workers don’t have colleagues actually sitting beside them, unable to share ideas verbally and work together, side-by-side, they can lose that spirit of togetherness that drives teams to hit their targets.
Try to counteract this by making team-building a key part of your remote working strategy. There are various ways in which teams can be developed from a distance. You might invest in gamified learning, for example, promoting a friendly spirit of competition among your teams, as well as making good use of video and web conference platforms to provide non-stop, seamless communication between your workers.
Strike the Right Balance
A big issue that can arise when switching to remote work is that managers can feel less in control of the situation. They may respond by becoming increasingly involved in their worker’s lives, micromanaging absolutely every little aspect, and trying to control everything, even from afar. This is a surefire way to completely kill motivation in your employees, as nobody wants to feel like they’ve got eyes over their shoulders every single second.
At the same time, employees still need direction, guidance, and feedback to see what they’re doing right and where they might be going wrong. It’s up to your management teams to strike the right balance between showing trust in employees and letting them get on with their work, while also making sure to keep them accountable for the tasks they have to do each day.
Value Your Workers’ Well-Being
Ultimately, if you want to make sure your workers feel motivated and have the desire to log on each day and carry out their tasks to the best of their abilities, you need to go back to basics and remember one of the most fundamental principles of business as a whole: workers who feel valued and cared about will naturally be more motivated to work hard for their bosses.
A worker who is treated well and looked after will respond positively, while one who is micromanaged or has their requests rejected will be demotivated. It’s simple logic. So try to respect your worker’s needs, being flexible to help them adapt to the pressures of working from home, adjusting hours if necessary, offering breaks, bringing some fun activities into the weekly schedule, listening to feedback, and so on.
Final Word
Keeping motivation levels high while working remotely may seem difficult at first, but with these tips and methods, you can get your teams firing on all cylinders once more.
About Jammie Morey
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