Employee Engagement Ideas For Remote Workers – Looking for ACTIONABLE ideas to engage with your employees who are (suddenly) working from home? Discover 10 great remote employee engagement ideas! All of them are very easy and completely free to implement.
You have come to the right place. In this blog post, I’m going to share with you 10 actionable ideas that you can put into action right away! They are very easy to implement and cost nothing.
Employee Engagement Ideas For Remote Workers
The first thing you need to do is set clear expectations if you want to ensure high engagement with your employees who work from home. Do your employees know what is expected of them when working from home?
Benefits Of Employee Engagement, And Why It’s So Important
To make that clear to all your employees, you should implement a remote work policy or so-called “remote work playbook”. This is a document that explains how your company implements remote working. ?
Who can your employees turn to for help if they have any difficulties and challenges related to remote working?
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Regular check-ins with your employees are essential when working remotely. Regular check-ins will ensure your remote teams are on the same page about their work roles. However, these meetings have an added value – they will create a sense of unity. ?
Ideas To Improve Company Culture
Best practice is to have daily team or department check-ins, weekly coordination meetings and monthly all-hands meetings. Make sure your team leaders keep their regular face-to-face meetings too.
You can choose to conduct these meetings via messenger, chat or face-to-face on a video call – whatever works best for your team.
➡️ However, make sure you have at least some of your check-in meetings via video conferencing tools, with your cameras OFF. Nothing can replace the human connection created by looking someone in the eye – even if it’s just via video conference!
In the office, coffee breaks tend to be spontaneous — people just walk by their colleagues’ desks and invite them for a quick coffee break. Taking a short break from work to meet with colleagues has been proven to be effective in boosting employee engagement and productivity.
Fun Back To The Office Employee Engagement Activities
This is why you should consider implementing “virtual coffee breaks” when your employees are working remotely. “Virtual coffee breaks” are short video calls (typically 15 to 30 minutes long) where your employees come together for a small talk over a cup of coffee. ☕
Your employees will likely have to attend multiple video calls and meetings while working remotely. That’s understandable because face-to-face communication is the fastest and easiest way to get all your remote team members on the same page. ?
However, if you want to keep your employees engaged during your video meetings, make sure not to schedule them too often. Video meetings should be reserved for urgent discussions and questions and should only involve people who have something to contribute.
➡️ Each of your video meetings must have a clear, objective and well-defined agenda shared in advance before the meeting begins, so that everyone is prepared. It is also a good idea to have a dedicated timekeeper and facilitator. Make sure you rotate these roles and give each team member a chance to run a meeting, as this will help keep them engaged.
Creative Employee Engagement Ideas For Remote Employees
If you want to spice up your video meetings and make them fun, try a pet, hat or similar theme. Invite video attendees to wear funny hats or show off their pets.
Another thing missing from the virtual office space is the opportunity for your employees to meet their colleagues over the wastewater and engage in small talk. “Water cooler talk” is the term used to describe casual discussions between co-workers about non-work related topics. ?
Personal interactions are an important part of every company’s culture because they make work meaningful and enjoyable. These casual conversations give team members opportunities to get to know each other better. That’s why you should enter the cool virtual water space!
➡️How to do it? Create a truly dedicated water cooler space in Slack or any other messaging chat you use. You can name it simply #watercoolerchat or simply #life. Encourage your employees to share updates, sites, news and fun things not related to work.
Employee Engagement Ideas To Motivate Remote Workers
To get your employees involved in this water cooler conversation, submit a daily question, theme or topic. Here are some ideas: food of the day, pet of the day, companion of the day, etc. Invite team members to respond with a photo, video or funny GIF!
While you should always consider organizing on-site team buildings if possible, don’t overlook the power of online team buildings. Online versions of team buildings can be just as effective! Some people prefer them because they are more convenient and provide the same feeling of harmony, fun and satisfaction. ?
There are many different online activities and games that you can use to help your remote employees get to know each other and build stronger connections. What type of team building you should organize should be based on your company culture and the preferences of your employees. Consider suggesting several options and asking your remote employees to choose the one they like best.
According to scientific research, knowledge sharing significantly and positively affects employee engagement. Knowledge sharing among employees enables them to grow at the individual and group level, which encourages productivity and innovation. ?
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Knowledge sharing in the workplace is the process of sharing expertise, information and skills among company employees. This process happens spontaneously when employees are working side-by-side, but when employees are working remotely, you have to make some effort to set it up.
According to Gallup research, recognition not only boosts individual employee engagement, but has also been found to increase productivity and loyalty to the company, leading to higher retention. Gallup data shows that the most effective recognition is honest, genuine and individual to each employee.
That’s why it’s important that you implement an online identification system for your remote employees. There are many different ways to do this, but I suggest you start with something very simple and completely free.
➡️ Create a kudos channel in Slack or any other messaging chat you use. Lead by example and start using it to celebrate wins and recognize good work. Introverts embrace the online identity ritual too, according to Red Shift’s experience.
Creative Engagement Ideas For Remote Employees
When we are working on site, the office is left as a symbol of the end of the working day and the working week. However, when you are working and chilling in the same place, it is not so easy to maintain the boundaries between work and rest.
So it’s no surprise that Buffer’s comprehensive State of Remote Work 2020 research found that the third biggest challenge facing remote employees is unplugging at work.
This is a very serious problem because staying plugged in means your employees can’t relax, which eventually leads to burnout. To avoid this, I recommend holding company-wide meetings called closed Fridays.
➡️ At the end of the working day every Friday, gather your team together for a short half-hour video meeting. Use it to recognize the work you’ve done during the week, celebrate your achievements and share plans for the weekend.
Employee Engagement Activities For Remote Work
Building and maintaining strong employee relationships can be difficult when you have remote employees – especially if they are not used to working remotely. Your remote employees may face different challenges, but you won’t know about them unless you ask.
Your remote employees are unlikely to feel that your daily stand-up meetings are an appropriate place to address their concerns. Since face-to-face time is relatively rare and precious in remote work, you won’t have the opportunity to see if your remote employees are dealing with some work-related issue. ?
That’s why you should regularly conduct periodic engagement surveys! Try to send these surveys at least once a month. That way, you’ll be able to compare the results and see if there are any changes or issues that need to be addressed.
The most important part of conducting employee engagement surveys is taking action on them! Check in with your remote employees who are facing challenges and create a plan to successfully address those challenging issues.
Must Try Team Engagement Activities For Your Remote Team
I designed the above wide-ranging employee engagement ideas with a clear goal in mind. I only intend to introduce cool ideas that your employees might like and enjoy. While the fun and excitement is definitely great, each of these ideas has been carefully selected to address a specific issue. ?
To successfully engage with your remote employees, you need to understand them. Needed by you
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