Tips on How to keep your Employees engaged whilst they are working from home?

The explosion of the internet has accelerated a shift in the ways people do their business. The ever-changing business landscapes driven by modern technology in the 21st century has marked a conspicuous transition from in-office work to telecommuting. But it is observed that many entrepreneurs are worried that their businesses are severely suffering when employees are working from home as it seriously disrupts standard hierarchical patterns of their businesses.

Working from home is a new experience for many employees and some of them are not well accustomed to it. They require guidance, suggestions, training, motivation, monitoring and evaluation to increase their efficiency, thereby making your business more profitable.

If you are worried about the same issues then read on as this platform may help your mindset. This article will delineate in detail how to boost productivity by simply implementing prudent business techniques.

Here are 7 useful tips to raise output and efficiency of your business when your staff work is working remotely:

Make employees accustomed to modern tools

Modern technology providers allow for easy transition to ensure smooth functioning of your business, if your workers are accustomed to using modern tools but most employees don’ t have professional expertise in using software and modern tools required for working from home. As a business owner/Manager, you have to provide them sufficient training through workshops and online tutorials to master them in using all the required tools with greater efficiency.

You should form a technical support desk to remove all the queries and problems related to trouble-shooting, equipment set up device or any other technical issue being faced by your staff. Before giving them tasks and assignments, assess their individual capacity, abilities and past experience in using required software and provide them necessary coaching accordingly.

Research studies prove that increasing training hours directly increase the productivity of your business.

Keep employees motivated – continuous professional development

Managing any business complete with different talent and personalities may be very difficult and challenging at times. It may be tough to keep employees engaged and make sure that the employer surroundings are enjoyable, rewarding and progressive. However, when working from home one way to help engage personnel is to assist them studying new technology and process improvement ideas and develop their abilities therefore supporting the organisation with positive change. Great employees are dedicated to preserving and growing their skills.

PAC Consulting Australia can help with providing self-development certification programs with the help of our partnership with CertHub. Learning whilst working from home for personal self improvement will only benefit the employee and builds a sense of loyalty.

Certification and international recognition gives an easy and cost-effective manner to better teach and interact your personnel. Also holding employees accountable for their own progression is an incentive for competition within teams can help you to judge who the stronger members within the teams are and also a way to see who is engaged.

Making sure employees have the necessary equipment

You should know that not everyone has the same facilities at home which they have at the office. Make sure that every employee has necessary equipment required for connecting and collaborating with other team members and delivering their respective tasks on time.

You ought to stick to methods you know will work effectively and don’t introduce new software and tools that may cause unnecessary complications for your employees. Also, as a manager, you need to deploy easily accessible training tools so employees can quickly get an understanding of unfamiliar technologies. For example, you may use Zoom for Video conferencing, Google drive for uploading files, presentations, documents etc. and WhatsApp groups for group chats. All your employees will be proficient in using these tools.

Avoid sharing documents via email as it is not an efficient mode when large number of employees are working remotely.

Having high speed Internet is a pre – requisite

Non-availability of high-speed internet to every worker is one of the main reasons of lower efficiency of business. To have a smooth functioning organisation, you have to regularly hold video conferences, video meetings, data transfer and other online activities in today’s information age. So, high speed internet is pre requisite for boosting efficiency of your business.

You should conduct a complete survey of your employees to determine their home technological capabilities and needs and must make necessary changes or adjustments like paying for an internet upgrade (ISP change) to ensure that every employee working from home has a minimum 4Mbps internet and required bandwidth to perform all tasks with proficiency.

Promote A Sense of Engagement and Connectedness

Man, by his nature, is a social animal. He works better when he interacts with his colleagues and that is why efficiency of work in a workplace is more than when you work from home. So, you have to ensure sound environment for your employees to keep them engaged towards work.

Keeping this mind, introduce some communication channels. You should take inputs from everyone to keep them in the loop and no one should feel isolated. You may introduce group chats and use video conferencing as frequently as possible to help employees maintain conviviality.

It is a fundamental to any successful business module. It improves communication, boosts team work and resolves queries quickly.

Taking Regular Feedback- Boosting Productivity

The ultimate goal of any business strategy is boosting productivity. There should be no panic-stricken environment and everyone must work in a relaxed and peaceful manner. You should be receptive to any feedback to fix issues and become part of problem solving. Generally, employees don’t feel comfortable in directly talking to the boss as compared to their peers, so you should have a professional team of subject matter experts to continuously keep in touch with employees and remove all their queries related to business activities or using online tools.

A Robust Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) Procedure

When your staff is working remotely, obviously there will be less coordination between you and them. Typical office culture includes constant meetings and reporting are order of the day but when your employees are working from home, your only mode of getting in touch are either keyboard or a video call. So, you need to delineate a robust and efficient system of monitoring and evaluation of every employee. They should feel that the boss is checking on every of them and at the end of the day, they will have to present their respective tasks and assignments. At the same time, you need to be flexible at times to let your staff accommodate to the new virtual workplace.

In a nutshell, it can be concluded that working from home is the future of business given the proliferation of modern technology. In order to survive in this ocean of cut-throat competition in business, you have to ensure that all your employees are accustomed with latest software, data security practices and group integration tactics that will ease the transition and ensure that workers remain productive and engaged. By doing so, you can turn the challenges into opportunities and employees’ working efficiently will inevitably lead to a better business output.