6 Ways to Motivate Your Remote Employees (or Hybrid Team)


Remote Work

For many years, the remote working style remained an uncharted territory until the start of coronavirus.  As a result, approximately 70% of the world’s employees commuted to work each week.  Some companies struggled to motivate and manage remote teams when remote work began.

However, because of changing times, organizations find themselves at a crossroads to find a solution to their daily business problems.  They also want to create effective work environments for their employees working fully from home or a few days from the office.  By motivating their remote employees, employers have an opportunity to fashion a culture of social cohesion and trust.

The following tips will help keep your remote team motivated and maintain employee engagement.

Provide Right Tools

A team cannot submit their work on time without proper tools.  Your employees need technical tools to support their flow of work and optimize productivity.  The lack of these tools affects their communication with the IT team and others.

So the company must provide its remote employees with a good internet connection, remote communication tools, project management tools, remote collaboration tool, time tracking tools, video conferencing tools, direct messaging platform, email, etc.  An ill-equipped team cannot communicate and collaborate well, thus, negatively impacting their success and motivation.

Build Trust

Micromanagement is a morale killer.  But, learning about your employees’ personal lives and work styles can help build rapport and trust as well as increase their morale.  For instance, instead of calling your employees now and then, why not use a time scheduling tool.  Technology can help you know if your remote team is performing their tasks as they should be without the feeling that you’re micromanaging them.

Additionally, showing that you trust your remote workforce allows them to take ownership of their assigned work.  It also helps them improve their time management skills.  In the end, rapport motivates your team to approach you without hesitation whenever there are any work-related problems.  Further, showing that faith in your team keeps it motivated and loyal to your company.

Inculcate a Growth Mentality

A growth outlook helps employees realize that they have room to stretch for more irrespective of where they’re in their careers.  Fostering the philosophies of a growth mindset can help your remote reach out to new training programs.  This can open up new personal and professional opportunities, thus strengthening the company culture.

Introduce an Employee Recognition Program

People are the most important ingredient in any company.  Sadly, many organizations put technology, systems, processes, and profitability first before their employees.  An organization can demonstrate that it appreciates its workers by establishing an employee recognition program for its on-premise and remote workers.  This lets remote workers feel that they’re part of the company and their contribution matters.

In fact, the program acknowledges their accomplishment, which makes them happier and more productive, as well as motivates them to stay longer with the company.  Therefore, don’t keep the names of your remote employees only in the email address book; instead, acknowledge their performance because they will contribute more to your company.

Communicate Communicate Communicate

Endeavor to have an ongoing communication thread with everyone you don’t see in the office.  You can schedule meetings via video conferencing apps such as Zoom, Skype, and the like instead of talking with them over the phone or chatting.

Generally, most human communication is nonverbal.  Having visual clues will enable you as a manager to better understand what your team is thinking.  So opt for video calls as opposed to chats or audio-only calls.

Additionally, try to create humor in your communication because it can help establish goodwill and keep lines of communication open.  Also, foster a culture of adding people on calls whenever relevant and required the same way you loop in employees in communication in an office setup.

Provide Feedback and Updates

People feel motivated when they receive constructive feedback and updates from their leaders.  In fact, regular feedback keeps the team engaged and motivated because it lets them align their expectations with their performance.  It also shows them that the company cares about their work even though they work from home.  Therefore provide positive feedback and updates when warranted.

Conclusion

The Covid-19 pandemic introduced a normal that includes working from home.  Because of that, remote work has become the modern workplace style.  Employees working away from the office can become demotivated and disengaged when they’re ill-equipped, micromanaged, their performance is not recognized, the communication is poor, and when they don’t get any constructive feedback or updates.

A motivated remote workforce focuses on their performance goals and has a growth mentality.  If you are working for a company as a remote worker, what steps has your employer taken to motivate you?  On the other hand, if you’re an employer with a completely remote team or hybrid team, what initiatives have you taken to motivate your team?  Kindly share your thoughts in the comment section of this article.


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