Top 5 Tips to Motivate Remote Employees

Post sponsored by Hubstaff

The modern-day workforce, due to technology and ever-increasing ease of long-distance communication, does not have to be together in one building. With an internet connection and a computer, employees can live hundreds or thousands of miles away from their boss. Remote employees are becoming more and more popular with employers, due to the flexibility that the arrangement allows for both parties. Employees can avoid moving or commuting for work, can better balance their life/work split, and it is always nice when the journey to work takes less than 30 seconds and your co-workers are your cats.

Having remote employees also comes with its own set of challenges, not least of which is motivation. Working from home, whilst convenient and desirable, is also a system that relies heavily on an employee’s motivation. Free from the watchful eye of management, the only things keeping remote employees from taking their foot off the gas pedal is their own discipline and their motivation. It is up to employers to provide this motivation across many miles, sometimes continents. Ultimately having remote workers can be a success. But in order to make this modern way of working successful, here are five tips to motivate remote employees in your own business:

1. Communicate regularly

No matter where a business has remote employees—some could be down the street, some could be Sri Lanka—to motivate remote employees, it’s vital to keep in touch with them. Rather than this just meaning speaking to them when it is time to impart and receive work or orders, realize this communication for the valuable tool that it is.

Whether it is via Zoom, email, or another platform, employers need to make sure their employees are happy and equipped to do their job. This is nothing out of the ordinary, as team meetings and a friendly chat are commonplace in every office, but, for whatever the reason, this can go straight out the window when it comes to remote workers. Finding out from them whether their work flow is too much or not enough, if they are receiving enough feedback, is vital to making remote working viable. If an employee feels as if they are adrift and cannot ask questions, then their work will suffer. It doesn’t take long for a friendly chat to reassure your workers and make sure everything is running smoothly.

2. Give praise when it's due

When there is not a physical body or face attached to the work, it can be all too easy to just accept the finished product as if a robot at some far end of the world produced it. However, there are real people behind the work who have put real effort into what they do. Many remote workers can lose motivation, as it can seem that their work goes unappreciated, and is rather just another product off a conveyer belt. Employers need to take the time to recognize good work and respond accordingly. Just accepting the work and replying with more, or not responding at all, is a surefire way to make sure that a remote employee’s motivation takes a nosedive. If the employee feels that the business does not care about their work, why will they continue to try hard? A simple call or email praising work can go a long way.

3. Make people feel part of the team

While working from home is clearly desirable for many, a lack of connection to the workforce can be a big drag on some workers' productivity and motivation. Having a purely compartmentalized remote workforce, where there is no communication or interaction between individuals, is a good way to ensure that someone feels isolated and not part of a bigger entity.

Web-conferencing software and other programs that allow staff to interact with one another will foster a sense of belonging and make the business feel real to the workers. If a business runs purely with remote workers, then it is essential to have something that makes the business a reality in the minds of its workers. Even a newsletter or something of this ilk can help in this regard. If workers have no sense of the business they are working for, no feeling of being part of a team or a whole, then it is easy for motivation to ebb away.

4. Provide regular feedback

If a business is using a remote workforce, it is a good idea to canvas opinion on a regular basis. If the business relies heavily on its remote workers, then it must ensure that everything is done as well as it could be. Asking for individual feedback is a great way to find an employee’s strengths and likes, and to find out important, ground-level information on how they find being a remote worker. Soliciting feedback via standardized, brief questionnaires can reveal broader problems or wishes, and allow the business to react accordingly. Canvassing remote workers (just as office workers would be) about their job and work processes is very important. Just because they are working from home does not mean there are no problems. Remote working is like any business activity—it requires tweaks and work to make it run smoothly.

5. Use quality-monitoring tools

When considering tools to monitor remote workers, careful consideration is appropriate before their implementation. Most employees will not care for a manager who is pouncing on them every time a minute elapses without furious work. These tools are best when framed as a good way of ensuring that remote employees are being paid fairly for the work that they are doing, and a tool with which the business can monitor productivity and project pace. These tools should not be used in a draconian manner (for example, held over workers' heads as a threat or constant surveillance tool) as this will only achieve the opposite of motivation and productivity.

Remote work is here to stay

Millions of people worldwide now work from home, and this means that remote working is a serious business model. The high cost of housing employees in an office space is also a strong incentive. As such, managers of remote workers need to treat it seriously. It is not enough to send out work, take it back, and then send out more. Remote workers need to feel valued, just like any other worker. Ensuring that workforces that are not present in a centralized office feel in the loop and valued comes down to good communication and practices. If the business is to run professionally, then the results will be professional. If the workers are under-appreciated, then the results will not be what you’d hoped.

If you have a remote workforce, then the Hubstaff app is for you. Your employees can simply download the app online, log in at the start of each shift, and through screenshots you can track their productivity, time worked, and much more. There's even a 30-day trial so you can see for yourself how much it can help the running of your business.