7 Simple Remote Employee Engagement Tactics That Actually Work

More and more employees are now hybrid working from home than ever before. As the trend continues to grow rapidly, employers face the pressing issue of adapting their companies to sustain teleworking comfortably. Unfortunately, the nature of this work arrangement can sometimes make it hard for employees to remain motivated and engaged. For that reason, implementing remote employee engagement tactics has become a necessity for many companies.

Engaging with remote employees isn’t just replacing in-person meetings with video conferences or calls. It mainly consists of finding adequate engagement activities for remote employees to keep them motivated and involved with the company.

Why Is Virtual Employee Engagement so Important?

Good virtual employee engagement provides many valuable benefits and incentives for both the employee and the company. The only way to have a successful remote work arrangement is to have both the employers and employees establish a good rapport.

Companies that have implemented the right engagement tactics are even more productive than usual. Engaged employees also have higher job satisfaction, and they are more committed to their work.

On the other hand, a communication gap between both parties can significantly harm productivity and morale in the long run. Employees are also more likely to leave the company when they don’t feel appreciated in it.

Simple Remote Employee Engagement Tactics That Work

If you don’t keep your employees engaged, there are many issues that the company can face. Many team members may start to feel isolated, and maintaining the company’s culture and values may become an arduous task. It’s a good idea to avoid common remote management mistakes and make an effort to engage with your company’s employees.

Many companies have tried several engagement activities for remote employees to keep them motivated, improving their productivity and creativity. Great engagement activities also foster a healthy company culture. Here are seven remote employee engagement tactics that have been proven to work as other companies implement them:

Improve your Communication Strategy

Having good internal and effective virtual communications within the company is important, but it becomes even more vital if you have several teams working remotely. Scheduling regular check-ins with your employees is an excellent way to promote open communication in the company. It allows your workers to stay informed regarding their responsibilities while also slowly building camaraderie between the employees.

Daily team check-ins, weekly meetings, or monthly feedback sessions are just some of the ways you can improve remote employee engagement. It’s helpful to host frequent sessions where your employees can ask questions about their projects or duties. You can also provide updates on your company’s policies and other things during these meetings.

Host Virtual Team Bonding Activities

Team bonding activities and other social events are an essential part of work for many employees. They are an excellent way for employees to get to know one another in a less formal setting. It allows them to build strong and healthy work relationships while slowly developing an attachment to your company.

Fortunately, you and your employees don’t lose out on these activities in a virtual work environment. Some companies use social networking services or other collaboration tools to plan and host engagement activities for remote employees. They also organize virtual team bonding for their employees. These activities can be daily workouts, virtual happy hours, quiz nights, and others.

Have Team Leaders or Managers Teach Classes and Lead Events

Most employees in a company tend to look up to their team leaders and superiors. They also might find it hard to engage with them as they’re busy most of the time, even more so during remote working where employees don’t run into them at all anymore. An exceptional work from home engagement idea and activity that solves this is hosting events or classes on activities you or the other team leaders enjoy outside of work.

Implement a Dedicated Water-cooler Channel

Virtual office spaces don’t have the same informal interaction opportunities that offices used to have. A popular one was meeting around the water-cooler to engage in small talk. It was a natural way to create connections and build rapport amongst the employees. They were an essential, meaningful, and enjoyable part of any company’s work culture.

Some companies create dedicated water-cooler spaces or channels on the messaging app they use to replicate these water-cooler moments and increase virtual employee engagement. If you make one, you can encourage your employees to share anything related to work in it, such as news, websites, personal updates, and enjoyable things.

Give Recognition

Showing appreciation as non-financial incentives for employees and recognizing their performance is an effective way to keep your remote employees engaged and motivated. It increases their productivity and loyalty towards the company, which reduces employee turnover.

Recognizing your employees’ significant accomplishments is essential, but it’s also good to give credit to the everyday wins. Implementing these minor signs of appreciation and recognition can improve remote employee engagement and morale as well. You can also use employee reward tools to offer better incentives to your employees as they get to choose their rewards once they hit their work milestones.

Conduct Surveys

You can perform surveys to ask for feedback regarding any concerns your employees may have. They might be finding some aspects of their remote work challenging or virtual meeting challenges, but the only way for you to know about them is to ask. It’s also an excellent way to check how satisfied they are with the current work from home engagement ideas. You can get feedback on whether they’re content with their job’s schedule, benefits, or even the management tools and program the company uses to work.

Provide Employees with the Right Equipment at Home

Remote working is highly dependent on the equipment the employees have at home. They might find it hard to perform their job if they have a faulty laptop or desktop computer. Network problems are another problem that many, if not all, remote workers face at some point.

It’s vital to provide your employees with the proper hardware to fix these issues or give them the means to choose another internet service provider. Another frequent problem is the lack of suitable office furniture. You can make many excellent investments, such as a home office standing desk, a home ergonomic chair, or the Kinn Chair. These ergonomic solutions can improve the health and motivation of the workers that require and deserve it.