How to Achieve Employee Engagement of Remote Workers (During a Pandemic)

Having trouble keeping your employees engaged while everyone is working from home? Are you getting the sense that they’re losing their motivation? (Maybe you are too?)

Many employees have been working from home during the COVID-19 pandemic. For a lot of employees, it looks like this will continue for a while. In some ways, we’re settling in to new routines, and this isn’t feeling quite as strange as it first did. However, employee engagement and motivation for your remote workers (and maybe yourself too) could be an increasing challenge.

Dealing with the continual stress and uncertainty of this illness plus the economic impacts is difficult. Your employees could be worried about their jobs. They may have sick family members. Juggling responsibilities such as childcare or eldercare can be exhausting. There’s also the social impact of not seeing each other, particularly if your team works onsite together. It was one thing when we thought this would just be for a short time, but now there’s a need to figure out how to keep everyone engaged longer-term.

I’ve worked with departments that were 100% remote all the time and had low turnover, few performance issues, and high trust survey results. Their employees worked remotely and were very engaged. It can be done!

Here are 5 strategies for achieving employee engagement with your remote workers.

1. Picture a successful ending, and make it happen!

One of my favorite books is Stephen R. Covey’s The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. The second habit is, “Begin with the end in mind.” Covey outlines the importance of creating a mission statement that guides each decision you make. This statement informs your decisions and helps you to continue moving in the right direction.

At some point, all of this will change, and we won’t need such social distancing. In the meantime, though, weeks and months will have gone by. If all we do is focus on what we’ll do when things are “normal” again, we run the risk of wasting the opportunities right in front of us.

By the time things transition back to normal (whatever that will mean), how would you define a successful use of this time? How will your team have grown and developed? Could it be you’ve developed new ways of meeting your customers’ needs? You’re working more efficiently? You’ve developed more camaraderie as a team? How will you look back and be proud of what you all accomplished and how you handled this?

Think about what’s important to you, your employees, your organization, and your customers. Involve your employees in brainstorming what this end should look like. As a team, develop your action plan – outlining your goals and how you’ll accomplish them. Remember that it helps to make these SMART goals (specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, timely). I’d only set 2-3 goals so you can focus on them and it’s feasible to accomplish them.

Having an action plan will help give your employees a renewed sense of purpose as they approach each day. Review this each team meeting to keep it front and center. Discuss how it’s going and whether you’re on track to accomplish your goals.

2. Round regularly on your employees.

The term “rounding” is one I wasn’t familiar with until working in the healthcare industry, but it’s such a helpful concept and has become a regular part of my vocabulary. When you’re a patient, your doctors and nurses round on you regularly to check on you and provide you with updates. You come to expect these interactions, and we all know how helpful it is to receive regular communication and know that people care about you.

Your employees feel very similarly! They need to know you care about them and support them. It’s often said that employees leave managers, not organizations. Rounding is a great way to (1) build relationships with your employees and let them know you value them and (2) provide support for work items. It doesn’t have to be long – just a few minutes is all it takes. When you round, take the time to find out how they’re doing and connect with them. Then, ask them what they need from you and how you can help them.

3. Cultivate camaraderie.

Camaraderie is such an important part of having an engaged team. For those who work onsite together, they have a lot of natural opportunities for casual conversations that build relationships – passing each other in the hallway, getting coffee in the breakroom, or popping by someone’s desk. The topics may be personal or work-related, but they happen regularly and naturally and contribute to an overall sense of camaraderie and teamwork.

When your employees don’t get to see each other, they don’t have these easy opportunities. So, you have to find creative ways to build camaraderie with remote employees. The key is to make this seem very easy and natural so that it becomes second nature. If it’s too structured, it loses its effectiveness.

One of the departments I worked with had virtual “water cooler” times, and the employees loved it! There were times designated each day when anyone who wanted to could jump on a conference call line, and they would talk about whatever they wanted to – just like it would be onsite. Managers popped in sometimes in order to build relationships and show their support, but they also didn’t want their employees to feel they were being “watched by the boss,” so they didn’t attend all the time.

Online chat features can provide a way to ask coworkers quick questions or send jokes to brighten someone’s day. This feature can get annoying though – I’ve had people message me after sending me an email and trying to call me (all while my status said “busy”). If used correctly, though, it can be a great way to connect quickly and easily.

4. Limit the meetings.

Just like everything didn’t have to be a meeting before, it doesn’t have to be a meeting now. And remember, conference calls and videoconferences are meetings too. Meeting exhaustion is real, and it’s been an issue for a while. A 2017 Harvard Business Review article outlined that, of 182 senior managers they surveyed, 71% described meetings as “unproductive and inefficient.” Collaboration is important, and there’s a time and place for that. Your employees also need time to do their work and be able to concentrate. When you do have a meeting, make sure it’s necessary and productive, and remember the importance of starting and ending on time.

“Zoom fatigue” has now become a thing. For many of us, video calls have become the only way to have face-to-face interaction with people outside our homes, so they’re getting used a lot, both for personal hangouts and work meetings. In moderation, they can be fun and make us feel more connected. You get to see someone else’s face, even if it is a little grainy or the Internet connection is spotty at times.

Video calls can also be very draining. A National Geographic article explained they’re taxing to the brain as it has to work extra hard to try to find nonverbal cues, and they can actually decrease collaboration. Plus, there’s the eyestrain of staring at a computer all day, and you have to make sure everyone understands the ground rules of professionalism during videoconferences. Save the video calls for when they’re necessary and helpful, or provide the option for employees to turn off their video. This allows them the flexibility to participate in the meeting more effectively. They can doodle like they would in regular meetings, call in from outside, or do whatever works best for them.

5. Have realistic workloads.

Your employees may be at home all day, but they still need work-life balance. This could be even more important now given the stress caused by the pandemic and by working and living in the same space all the time. We all need to be taking care of our mental and emotional health. Your working parents may be particularly exhausted trying to juggle everything without the typical support systems.

Evaluate your employees’ workloads, and make sure they’re realistic. If you’ve implemented a hiring freeze during the pandemic, this is an important part of retaining your employees during the hiring freeze. This isn’t about coasting by. It’s about supporting each other. Overworked and stressed out employees aren’t engaged employees. With so many things being turned upside down, this is a great opportunity to evaluate what can be done differently. Let the action plan you created earlier be a guide for you. You may even come up with strategies that are better than what you were doing before!

(You may also find that your remote employees are more likely to work when sick since they can just log on from home. They may feel like this is the expectation. Make sure they understand that paid sick leave is for remote employees too! Encourage them to take care of their health and wellbeing.)

You can do this!

Achieving employee engagement of remote workers takes intentionality and creativity, especially during so much change and uncertainty. Applying these strategies will demonstrate your leadership, showing your employees how much you value them and support them. Ultimately, you’ll be able to look back and be proud of how you all made the most of what you were faced with.

Photo credit: By ChristianChan / Canva