In the wake of a coronavirus outbreak, global warming and the numerous benefits to having a remote workforce. Businesses are having to adapt their working policies and encourage employees to work from the home office far quicker than previously thought.

The rise in remote working will be increasing significantly over the next few months, with the outbreak of coronavirus increasing, companies are needing to adapt their workforce to work from home, for some organisation they’ve had time to adapt to these changes. Although for most companies, this is a completely new era for their organisation which could bring many benefits and challenges. Similarly, for employees, working remotely could be everything they have hoped for, although it could also be a transition period that bring feelings of isolation and irritability.

Create Daily Routines

The idea of working remotely can be a dream come true; not having to face the stressful commute, reducing monthly outgoings on travel and avoiding people with the stresses of coronavirus being prominent now. However, some people can struggle with the loneliness of working from home if they enjoy the vibrant office atmosphere and chit chat that many people enjoy. There could be a lack of motivation if meetings are a big part of someone’s role also, ensuring all these weekly meetings go ahead is vital to ensure employee engagement and maintaining a motivated workforce.

It is important for companies to implement daily routines, ensuring the Monday morning meeting goes ahead at the same time every week, or the daily Friday catch up stays the same. A daily report can be written, or a project management tool can help to ensure that businesses stay in the loop, while maintaining that trust of their valuable employees. Ensuring that tasks are completed can be the new shift for organisations as remote employees may prefer a different time structure; they could choose to work earlier and finish earlier or start later and finish later, allowing employees to be target approached will ensure that they feel supported and trusted in this new shift.

Invest in Good Systems

One of the major concerns for organisations is ensuring that employees continue to work effectively while working from home. Micromanagement plays no part in an employer need to view results from their remote workforce; ideally it would work in the same way as in an office with a weekly catch up and targets set for the week.

At Communere, as a fully remote workforce, we are still learning the different tools that work for the different departments, being an international team, we need to feel like a “normal” office while retaining our remote status. We use a number of effective systems to help keep everything ticking over; Jira for daily updates, Confluence for weekly meetings and targets, as well as Zoho for our CRM system to ensure sales targets are being reached, and for most communication online and for calls we use Slack and Skype.

Technology and tools play a huge role in allowing for employee targets to be reached and ensuring they remain motivated and comfortable with what they need to achieve. This in turn leads to happy employees, which is vital for all businesses for productivity and retention of staff.

Offer Training & Development

One mistake organisations can make while working with a remote workforce is that they hire for the most skilled in the market to ensure that there is limited training time, although once people are in the organisation, there can be a lack of support and development. One of the biggest factors of ensuring employee retention is to provide opportunities such as online courses, live webinars and conferences for them to attend.

The cost of these courses, conferences etc is an investment for your organisation as it ensures loyalty, networking opportunities and time for team bonding; all vital things for employees in both the office and remote working space.

Trust, Trust & Trust Again

Of course, organisations may fear the worst with a remote employee; sat at the pub enjoying the sunshine or taking a week of holiday while occasionally checking in. This could happen with office-based employees and is not exclusive to home working employees. The targets of deliverables set by you, ensures that targets are met, and employees feel trusted. If employees feel trusted, they thrive.

With these tips in mind, we hope you can thrive as an organisation, or as a remote employee both now during trickier times, and in the future if it is something that you enjoy. At Communere we thrive as a remote team and feel free to ask for any tips. We are happy to help.