The COVID-19 pandemic has laid bare the problems many companies are facing during their operations. Uncertainty is very high, as we experience a complete disruption of various workplace practices. Remote working is still ongoing and organisations are adapting to new working conditions in this unprecedented crisis. Maintaining productivity levels among remote employees is an enduring challenge. This article will examine some helpful productivity tips for a successful virtual workforce.
Emmanuel Zvada
While remote work is not new, a majority of employees has never experienced what it truly entails, especially when it comes to issues of engaging people who are working from home so that they are productive. The rapid shift to remote work has created new challenges for organisations and one of the challenges is finding how best productivity can be managed and improved in a virtual world.
Communicate your company’s vision
If you are worried about your employees’ engagement and productivity levels when working remotely, helping your employees better understand your vision is the only way to go. It is trite that most employees can be more productive if they have a clear sense of their company’s vision. Therefore, your company’s mission and vision need to be communicated to your employees. Good leaders relentlessly communicate their company’s visions so that the followers do not operate in darkness.
Define and explain to employees the right set of KPIs
Key performance indicators (KPIs) are defined as measurable values that demonstrate how effectively a company is accomplishing the needed benchmarks in order to meet a larger company goal. Goals are defined as ideas of the future or desired results that your organisation aims to achieve, hence your goal is the desired result and your KPIs track whether or not you will reach it. The best companies use KPIs for employees to drive performance and ensure that they sweat their most-prized assets — employees
Effective performance management of remote workers calls for KPIs to check if the employees are in line with our vision. Business KPIs that track both productivity (in terms of output) and effectiveness drive focus and accountability within the team. They can help predict productivity, or provide early warnings, without KPIs to measure where you started and your progress toward your goals, you will not know if your efforts to create an engaged workforce, decrease turnaround, increase employee satisfaction are successful or not.
- Chamisa under fire over US$120K donation
- Mavhunga puts DeMbare into Chibuku quarterfinals
- Pension funds bet on Cabora Bassa oilfields
- Councils defy govt fire tender directive
Keep Reading
Create a connected team remotely
The most important thing to ensure when managing remote employees is making sure they know that even when they are working away from the workplace, they are still part of a team. Whether you have a handful of remote workers or your entire workforce is remote, it’s important for every company to encourage cross-team collaboration and relationship building. The physical distance between workers can soon lead to feeling separated entirely, which can leave remote employees feeling unsupported and disconnected from those they work with. Ultimately, this can reduce employee productivity. Regular meetings help maintain a connected team and sense of community, even when people are working remotely.
Implement new technologies to enable remote work
Organisations across the world have confirmed that COVID-19 is driving digital revolution at their workplace. This is not surprising as, without the right technology in place, it is impossible to ensure business continuity and productivity in this new, online working environment.
Employees need access to solutions that enhance communication, collaboration and project management and its employers’ responsibility to ensure the use of the right technologies during the pandemic. Now that most learning is virtual, it’s time to either create a curriculum in-house or partner with third-party providers to provide our companies with the trainings we need.
Regular recognition matters during COVID-19
Recognition becomes even more important in a remote environment in which managers don’t have access to the physical and verbal clues they might pick up on in the office. Leaders should identify fresh occasions to express recognition, custom-made to individuals in a meaningful and genuine way. Employers should offer fair compensation and benefits, comprehensive reward and recognition systems.
The most important employee benefits during COVID-19 include paid leave, flexibility, employee assistance programmes, healthcare coverage, and childcare support. Having the right benefits in place reduces employee financial stress because they factor into the costs that employees would have trouble paying right now during COVID-19.
Real time feedback tools for remote employees allow peers and managers to share constructive feedback in a much more effective way. Managers should make a concerted effort to give just as much feedback to remote employees as they do to in-house employees. When people are open to feedback, communication flows improve significantly. Trust can be created through constant feedback exchanges. The more employees receive feedback from their employers, the more likely they will be able to act on the feedback for the good of the company.
When managers consistently deliver real time feedback, everyone benefits. Effective real time feedback saves time and results in fewer difficult conversations.
No employee wants to work in darkness without knowing where the company is going or what the company is planning. If done appropriately, regular feedback can be a useful tool for helping employees and the organisations at large.
Be transparent and build trust with your employees
Trust is difficult, but important. It is an essential foundation for effective teamwork. If the members of a virtual workforce don’t feel like their leaders trust them, the team will not function well. The best method for establishing trust within a remote team is to be vocal about the culture of trust you expect.
Without transparency, employees may feel under-appreciated, worried about the future of their employment, and doubtful of the decisions made by those in positions of authority. Make a point to share this information with them on a regular basis.
Being transparent makes your employees makes your employees feel an important part of the business and it also helps them in pointing out and contributing in areas where things could be improved.
Establishing and maintaining a successful virtual team is no easy matter, but it is a worthwhile endeavour. The hybrid working model is likely to be the new reality, and people will have to adjust as new working habits emerge. The winners in this new virtual world will be those organisations that successfully navigate the specific challenges of managing remote teams.
