4 Tips for Engaging with Your Remote Teams

Working remotely was once seen as a “perk” start-up companies would use to attract new talent looking for a little more flexibility in their workweek. However, as the benefits of remote work became more and more evident, it has become the norm for many employees across every industry worldwide.

With the positive benefits come additional challenges though, such as keeping your remote workers engaged and aligned with your company’s efforts.

Have a clear communications strategy

Nothing ruins your ability to generate effective employee engagement more than a poor communications strategy, especially with remote employees. It’s not rocket science to know that having a clear message asking for feedback is the best way to communicate to your workforce. 

Considering your remote employees are not in the office to hear and take part in new ideas or initiatives, it’s crucial to effectively communicate with them and not just assume they are in the loop.

Have set goals

Having remote employees requires two things: trust and set deliverables. Your remote teams may not work in the same time zone or don’t work in the traditional nine-to-five routine, so setting realistic goals, deliverables and deadlines will go a long way.

For example, it’ll help your employees be more productive and focused and give you peace of mind knowing that your remote teams are contributing to your company’s growth. This also means that you must trust them to get their job done and give them the freedom to achieve their deliverables in their own way.

In other words: don’t micromanage!

Ask questions and seek feedback

If you want to build engagement with your remote teams, then you need to ask questions and seek feedback from them about how informed they are with company goals, news, and initiatives. Too many companies push work requests, news, and content towards their employees and expect them to understand and interact with it. 

This simply does not work, and from working closely with our own customers we have seen that employees are far more engaged with their work when you also ask for their feedback.

This can be something as simple as sharing content that generates a discussion or creating a quick anonymous survey to find out how your remote employees feel about your processes. 

Don’t rely on just issuing orders to your remote employees, ask them how you can improve!

Have a little patience 

We all know that Skype and Zoom calls can drop out due to a poor internet connection. And just have a little patience with setting up your communications and how you handle working with remote employees. 

If they are working from home then the dog might start barking, or a child might make a little noise. Be understanding that this method of working is vastly different from the rigid ways of working we’re all accustomed to.

Have some patience, give some flexibility, and you’ll see quite quickly that your remote employees will be more productive, engaged, and contribute more to achieving your company goals.