Do you have employees all over the globe? Do you have a workforce that works from remote or home offices? Often keeping these individuals feeling like they are part of the comradery and relationships within the office can be difficult.
But if you don’t take the time to do this, you’re remote office employees will feel disconnected, less productive and valued, and will be tempted to leave when something better comes along.
If you want a good, strong, healthy remote workforce, you need to think about the following things.
How to Make Your Remote Employees Feel Valued
Remote employees are an incredibly productive part of your team. Studies have shown that some remote workers are even more productive than those in the main office. However, this is only true when they feel valued and a part of your organization. Here’s how you can ensure that.
Send Swag
Sending remote employees branded pieces like pencil holders, apparel, calendars, or other reminders of your company makes them feel like a part of your organization even when they are far away. However, keep in mind how they work. If they are frequent travelers and do much of their work from the road, give them swag that fits that. Stay away from home office swag. Instead, send apparel, bags, or tech equipment such as power-ups or cell phone accessories.
Host Video Conference Calls
While conference calls are sometimes hard to arrange due to different time zones, if it’s possible, bring your team together periodically on a video conference call. If you’re all in the same (or similar) time zones allow employees to expense a meal delivered to them so you can have lunch together even when you’re miles away.
If you’re separated by many hours and you’re asking employees to give up their evening to speak with you, consider allowing them to log in later the following morning or log off early one day.
When hosting video conference calls encourage everyone to look at their webcams so that better eye contact is achieved.
Create a Company Intranet or WikiPage
You want your team to feel connected so implement some kind of virtual communications. This could be a newsletter, intranet/private community, or a wikipage. This will help create a virtual watercooler atmosphere at which employees can exchange information, jokes, stories, hobbies, and more. Some companies use a private online community similar to Facebook to allow and encourage employees to get to know one another.
Bring Them All Together
Periodically, it benefits your team to come together for a face-to-face event. It needn’t be at your corporate office. It can be at a trade show where you are exhibiting or at a professional development conference you’d like your team to attend.
Or you could bring the team into the headquarters. If you choose this option, you want to make sure it does not become a “main office employees” versus everyone else mentality. Host events that encourage mingling and pair up remote and local people so that everyone feels at home.
Celebrate Them
It’s likely for your in-office employees that you celebrate their birthdays, anniversaries, and other meaningful dates. Make sure you do the same for your remote employees. Get others involved too. Make sure you encourage in-house employees to reach out to remote employees on their birthdays and other events by making them aware of them.
Making your team feel like a team can be a challenge. But it’s absolutely necessary if you want them to function at their most productive. Give us a call today. We can help you find ways to make them feel like a million without spending that much.
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