The Role of Employee Control
Tools in Remote Employee Engagement
Meet Janet. She’s a remote virtual assistant and satisfied with her job. She works around 8 hours a day — with a midday break to pick her kids up from school. Her paychecks are regular and she doesn’t work on weekends. However, for Janet, this is just a job. It gets her by to pay the bills and go on vacation once a year, but Mondays are not something she particularly looks forward to.
She’s satisfied, but not engaged. What’s the difference? While a satisfied employee puts just enough for a paycheck, the engaged employee sees more in their job than just money. They love their job and are deeply involved in it; they’re committed to the company and understand how their work fits into the big picture. Simply, they’re every employer’s dream.
However, stats say that not many employers have their dream come true — according to Gallup, only 32% of the US workforce is engaged. Their reasons range from poor manager communication to unknown employer expectations and the lack of tools to do their jobs.
When you add remote work to the equation, a level of difficulty rises. Lack of communication and transparent information is already an issue for remote workers — while 55% of businesses believe they’re very transparent, only 18% of their employees would agree. This inevitably leads to their disengagement, and that in turn hurts your company in the long run. Disengaged workers cost the US economy up to $605 billion in productivity!
What Can You Do to Keep Your Remote Workers Engaged?
Nurture Good Communication
This is the basis of a functioning remote work. Through communication, employees learn what they need to do, but furthermore — they learn how what they do leads towards achieving company goals. They’re committed to the company, but in turn, they need to be allowed to get actively engaged in the whole decision-making process. Nurture an open two-way communication that allows them to give their input, share their ideas and concerns and be an integral part of the company.
But don’t stop on work-focused communication. Remember that remote employees too often feel distant from their in-office peers, mainly because of the lack of informal communication. Small talk helps them feel more a part of the team, so don’t hesitate to occasionally drop an off-topic instant message.
Give Recognition
Acknowledgment is one of the best motivators for both in-office and remote workers. And, without motivation, there’s no engagement. As an employer, you shouldn’t let the work well done go unnoticed. Incentives don’t have to be something big — sometimes a simple “thank you” goes a long way.
Go the extra mile and make it public — share it on your internal communication tool. This will motivate other employees to work harder and gain that same recognition.
Offer Career Development
Everyone wants to grow their career. Employees find that one of the most important factors when looking for a job. Remember that your employees are the mirror of the company, and investing in them is investing in your business.
Your remote employees don’t want to be a cog in a big wheel, they want real responsibility, which comes with career advancement. Discuss their development goals, and help them achieve that.
Measure to Improve
Your remote employees want to improve, but it’s difficult to keep track of where they currently stand. This is where employee control tools come in handy.
Productivity monitoring tools can help you gain insight into what applications and websites your employees are using in real-time. This way, you’re involved in their workflow, and you can step in if you see someone struggling with their assignment. Remote work monitoring software also tracks their activity levels, so you can easily distinguish engaged and disengaged employees, so you know where you need to put more effort into.
Allowing employees to see productivity monitoring software dashboard helps them gain a vision of the big picture, as they can see who’s working on what, and how it all leads toward the company goals.
Furthermore, employee control tools allow you to create a performance review, which will help you give your employees proper feedback based on gathered data. Keeping employees in the loop with how well they’re performing is important in their engagement. When done right, even negative feedback does wonders for their motivation.
Final Thoughts
Keeping remote employees engaged is no magic — it’s an ongoing process that’s based on regular and open communication, but it doesn’t end there. Gain performance data via different employee control tools, and use them as a motivator for performance improvement.
