Working remotely has been a dream of many people for years. While it has many benefits, like saving the company’s money and making the employees happier, not all business owners are wanting to implement remote policies in their company.
And today, when the coronavirus outbreak has forced many people all over the world to start working remotely, some employers are afraid that remote work will lead to less productive workers.
That’s why in this article, we’ll be taking a look at some of the ways your employees (and you!) can be productive and strive while working remotely.
1. Communicate, Communicate, Communicate
For a business to be successful, certain communication expectations have to exist, especially now when the entire organization is working from home. This means you need to tell your employees about specific means, times, and frequency of communication you expect in your company.
You also need to encourage your employees to often communicate both with you and each other. Since all of you are now at home, you need to ensure you are all still on the same page and working on achieving the same goals. The best way to do that is to share all the important information you have with your team while also encouraging them to do the same.
2. Make Sure Everyone Tracks Their Time
Even the most proactive employees that are always on alert with everything that’s happening in the company are bound to miss something. Even if that doesn’t happen, things can (and most likely will) get messy at some point which is why you need to predict any messes before they happen.
The best way to do that is to have your employees track their time. With employee time tracking you can accurately estimate whether or not any of your deadlines are about to be missed. Additionally, time tracking helps you see if all of your employees are doing the work you’re paying them to do.
3. Set Expectations For All Your Employees
While it’s usually not too hard to see if your employees are delivering the work, but with everyone working from home and asynchronous communication, it may not be so easy to correctly see how your employees are performing. It’s important to set expectations with all of your employees as soon as possible.
Once your employees know what exactly you expect out of them, they’ll be much more likely to deliver the work. With clear expectations, it will be easier for you to follow their progress and to measure their performance and how successful they are in delivering the work. This can be helpful further down the line when you decide to reward the best performing employees.
4. Cut Everyone Some Slack and Don’t Forget to Have Fun
Transitioning to remote work is a huge change for everyone and such a huge change usually doesn’t happen overnight. However, you don’t have that luxury now. When everything is so all of a sudden, there is a huge chance that some of your people or you will feel more stressed out, unmotivated or frustrated than usual.
This is, however, perfectly normal and completely fine, even when you disregard everything that’s happening in the world these days. We all need time to adjust to changes, especially when they are so big. That’s why it would be great if you could cut everyone some slack and don’t expect them to be so productive all the time.
Be there for your employees as much as you can and try to have some fun while working. Work doesn’t have to be serious all the time. By having fun with your employees, you’ll build stronger bonds with each other and it will be a little bit easier for everyone to go through this.
Consider doing some fun activities together: start a book club, play games online, eat lunch together, or just chat about your day. There is almost an infinite amount of fun remote activities you can do.
Conclusion
Even though remote work has been a dream of many for years, not all business owners were on board. Most of them are afraid of the effects it will have on everyone’s productivity.
However, if you, as the business owner, introduce proper ways of communication, make sure everyone tracks their time, set clear expectations for them and don’t forget to have some fun while cutting everyone some slack, you ensure your employees stay productive even during hard times like these.