Your team is amazing. Every day they come to work with smiles on their faces and their sleeves rolled up, ready to tackle the day. They are a manager’s dream.
You can only hope that your remote workers are as motivated and happy as your in-house employees. If only there was a way to be sure. Wonder no further. There are ways to deftly manage and motivate your remote employees and make them feel like a valuable part of your team.
Communicate
Your in-house team speaks with each other all the time and, thanks to these open lines of communication, they can bond, share ideas, and keep tabs on projects. Your remote employees must also have easy access to their coworkers, and this means equipping them with the right communication tools.
For instance, by enabling Olaf in Oslo to confer, collaborate, or engage in some mere friendly banter with his fellow teammates, he can feel completely connected–despite being an ocean away. According to Entrepreneur, a company with remote workers should offer a corporate instant messaging system like HipChat, Campfire, or Chatter, and a video communication tool like Skype or Google+.
Acculturate
You’ve worked hard to establish your corporate culture and incorporate it into everything your company does. Are you communicating this culture to your remote employees? If not, it is impossible for your remote workers to feel truly like valued members of a cohesive team.
“How to Provide a Great Experience for Remote Workers” explains that you must keep remote employees involved in social media interactions, office celebrations, corporate news, and other cultural opportunities in order to make them feel more vested in the business. If Mohan in Mumbai is unable to glean a sense of who his employer is and what they value, it will be hard for him to feel motivated and like an essential part of the team.
Cultivate
A chain is only as strong as its links, and a team works in the same way. Creating a strong team begins with hiring the right people. Remote workers need to be adroit independent workers and self-motivators–preferably people who can demonstrate that they have successfully navigated this work style in the past.
Plus, as David Heinemeier Hansson, coauthor of Remote: Office Not Required, tells Business Insider, employees need to be hired on the merits of what they produce. He recommends giving job candidates a sample project to complete before making a final decision. This will better tell you if Andy up in Anchorage is the right person for the job.
Celebrate
Everyone loves a pat on the back, but the one thing humans love more is when it is done in public. Yes, nothing beats a reward.
How can you reward Pierrette in front of her peers when she is miles away in Paris? Business News Daily recommends initiating a digital recognition program such as badging–like in the military or Boy Scouts–to reward either individuals or teams. This not only allows you to acknowledge the efforts of your employees, but it will also spark their competitive spirit, increasing motivation, innovation, and productivity.
While some may argue that being able to work remotely is an adequate motivator in itself, this is not always the case. Remote employees, like any other member of your team, need to feel a sense of belonging, purpose, and accomplishment. And, thanks to today’s technologies, you can motivate and manage your remote workers more efficiently than ever before.
What technological tools do you use to manage and motivate your remote employees?