Employee Engagement and a Remote Workforce

The pandemic significantly changed the structure of work and increased remote or hybrid work situations from what was rare to now what is commonplace.  This has left companies grappling with questions around continuing the remote work trend.  Should they bring employees back in the office to ensure a high level of employee engagement, productivity, and culture?  The risk is that these employees will leave the company if forced to return to the standard in-office work job. According to a Gallup poll in June of 2022 https://www.gallup.com/workplace/397751/returning-office-current-preferred-future-state-remote-work.aspx approximately 56% of full-time employees in the U.S. have jobs that are remote work capable. And 60% of remote working employees said they are extremely likely to change companies if their remote flexibility was removed.  So what is a company to do?

The error in thinking here is that you must give up one to get the other.  You can continue remote and hybrid work situations and ensure high employee engagement, productivity, and culture.  All it takes are the right management techniques.  You cannot manage a remote workforce the same way as an in-office one if you want to get the same level of engagement.  But if you apply a few different management techniques you can have a remote workforce that is stronger and even more engaged than the standard in-office one.

There are 7 strategies to successfully managing remote/teleworking teams, that differs from regular employee management.

1. Increased Communication– Communication with remote employees must be increased. The perception, is that you will communicate less with virtual working employees – which will cause the decrease in collaboration and idea sharing that they experienced.  Managers need to make a conscious effort to communicate more with teleworking employees, as well as facilitate increased communication between team members, to foster the same level of idea sharing and collaboration.  Communication should never be delayed because you can’t walk down the hall to chat with someone.  Pick up the phone, send an email or use IM to foster that same chat.  It does take some initial assistance to get employees into this routine, but once that is created, it will happen naturally.
2. Create a Team Community– Managers need to make a more concerted effort to create a team community when their teams work remotely. They need to find opportunities for team members to work together, celebrate together, and spend time talking about non-work related things.  This helps them get to know each other as individuals, so they can work more effectively together, and feel like a part of an important group.
3. Manage to Goals and Outcomes, Not Tasks– Give employees the responsibility to manage themselves by providing the vision and guidance when needed, rather than explicit instructions that are task focused – these decisions should be left in their hands.
4. Create an AccountabilitySystem – One of the biggest fears when managing a team of remote employees is that they won’t be working and getting the job done when you can’t see them. Unfortunately, this fear can lead to micro-managing employees, which can lead to the direct results you are trying to avoid.  Instead of micro-managing employees, have them hold themselves accountable by providing a weekly status report to you of weekly goals you have set.   No one wants to come to their manager and tell them they did a bad job.   Everyone wants to be able to take pride in their achievements.  Having them keep and report their weekly goal attainment status keeps them self-motivated to reach those goals.
5. Ongoing Socratic Coaching– Teleworking employees need to learn how to make the correct decisions in the absence of their manager. The best way to prepare them for this is through Socratic coaching.  This coaching method is designed to coach through self-discovery by asking the employee open ended questions to teach a thinking process that enables them to make better decisions in future.
6. Motivate Rather than Move Employees– What many call motivation is often really movement. It is the carrot and stick approach.  If an employee does something, they receive a reward, or if they don’t, it’s a punishment.  This method must be continuously re-charged, which can quickly fail when employees are not always in the same office.  Instead, it’s important to motivate remote working employees by developing their pride and self-esteem in what they do.   This is self-charged and will deliver longer lasting motivation.  Develop employees pride through giving them ownership of their job through decision making and idea sharing.  Also find ways to give them praise and a sense of accomplishment.
7. Create Trust– Trust is critical for teleworking employees to work well as a team and as individuals. Without daily face-to-face contact, trust is more vulnerable to break-down.  Remote employees in particular need to know that their manager respects and trusts them to carry out every day work functions, with little or no supervision.  They also need to trust that their team members are there to help them when needed and have their and the team’s best interests at heart.   Trust needs to be created through extending trust to employees, creating non-work related relationships, communication, holding people accountable, and consistency in actions and expectations.

Remote teams that are managed with these 7 techniques have high engagement, productivity and culture. If this is the case, why transition back to an in-office situation? It’s important to weigh whether bringing employees back in-office is based on a valid reason, or on outdated fears and policies. Most fears of keeping to a remote environment, such as a negative impact on productivity, communication, or culture, are unfounded. All of these things can be overcome by using management methods designed for a remote workforce. It is easy to keep that culture and cohesion alive in remote teams with the right techniques.

What do you really want? Productive, happy workers in a thriving company culture? It can be obtained more optimally with a remote workforce.  The companies that thrive in this new post pandemic climate are working remotely.