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Remote working has long been proved successful in the productivity stakes, even years before the COVID-19 pandemic struck. In an early-2010s study highlighted by the BBC, working from home just one day a week improved output by 13%.
Nonetheless, as many of the research participants later struggled to keep up this remote-working form, you need to know what to do to spur increased productivity in your home-based staffers.
Set short-term goals building up to long-term ones
In other words, set a series of small tasks – all of which with specific deadlines attached – so that, in completing these assignments, your remote employees work towards longer-term milestones. Those milestones could include, say, increasing the company’s profits by 50% in six months.
Set up a virtual phone system for everyone to use
By establishing this kind of system, you can help to remove much friction between your home-based workers and those still tied to the office. That’s because everyone across this divide could use the system for the same purposes – like taking calls and redirecting them to appropriate employees.
Companies that arrange for business phone systems to be installed also allow their workers to use their personal phone numbers while keeping them private.
Give remote workers chances to interact verbally with each other
According to one estimate mentioned by Business 2 Community, “70% of communication amongst remote team members is nonverbal”. In other words, they primarily use such communication channels as email and text messaging to keep in touch with each other.
Therefore, you should consider holding videoconferences so that remote team members can regularly switch back to face-to-face conversation, which would be less impersonal.
Make sure new remote employees get suitable training
When someone new joins your company but hasn’t previously worked remotely, you should ask one of your employees who is experienced with remote work to act as a mentor to the new recruit. This mentor could answer any questions the new employee asks about their new responsibilities.
Offer incentives and rewards for hitting productivity targets
The incentives and rewards you could offer include cash bonuses, extra time off, pay rises, and gift cards. You might have some other ideas that you reckon would, for your particular team, be more effective motivators than these examples.
Give employees more control over their work hours
One key attraction of working from home is not strictly adhering to the usual 9-5 office hours… if, of course, you permit your remote workers to be flexible with their time in this way.
These people might, in their lives, have various other pressing responsibilities – like looking after family members, volunteering, or maybe even handling a second job. So, you could let your remote employees choose which hours to work during the day.
Provide performance reviews
In doing this for each member of your remote team, you can inform them where – if anywhere – their performance is flagging and what they could do to improve it. Giving a performance review periodically to each remote worker can help to prevent them from becoming complacent.
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