Working from home has drastically risen in popularity with the recent pandemic crises that swept the world. Safety precautions enticed businesses to transition most, if not all, of their workforce to resuming their duties from the seclusion of home. Although this brought about many health benefits in the aid to reduce national spread of the disease, it also brought up many concerns for the companies and employees when it came to performance and efficiency in the workplace. Approximately 89% of businesses no matter the size made this change towards working from home, causing many to permanently make the shift with many downsizing their buildings or moving out and selling them completely. One of the biggest issues businesses faced was the lack of motivation apparent in workers who were deprived of the regular conversations and connections that were more available when attending their previous workplace. For business owners and management to practice and employees to encourage, here are some ways in which companies can keep their employees motivated while working from home.

 

1. Make employees feel valued
Uplifting and recognizing employees keeps them encouraged to continue working while enticing potential further growth.

2. Encourage workplace and personal growth
Having motivational speakers, employee newsletters, and providing beneficial literature are ways in which growth can be fostered in not only the workplace, but in their personal lives as well.

3. Quantify improvement and emote the recognition
Keeping statistics on employee’s growth helps maintain updates on how everyone is doing since the dependency on casual conversation and more frequent meetings has greatly diminished. Recognizing employees for growth is also highly uplifting and encouraging.

4. Use visuals to display statistics
Without in-person interactions it sometimes makes it harder for employees to fully grasp concepts without whiteboards, posters, billboards, sticky notes, etc. Absentees are also left in the dark by merely missing a single meeting or concept; therefore, visuals are a better solution to explain complex ideas while making a concise image easier to send and store at one’s own convenience.

5. Communicate more often than normal
Even though a company’s weekly team meetings may have at the time been sufficient in person – remotely it may prove to be no longer satisfactory. Working from home severs nearly, if not all, communication with fellow employees and sometimes management. As a result, it should be practiced communicating more often in group and individual settings. Now that COVID is no longer an issue, in-personal meetings on occasion may also be a worthy option to consider.

6. Promote negative and positive feedback
Always be open for feedback in any workplace scenario. Being transparent with remote employees allows avenues to avoid “quiet quitting” or address what issues are the causes of any negative change.

7. Be flexible
Since it is not possible to witness individuals constantly at work when at home, it shouldn’t be completely expected of them to work as consistently as they had while under supervision. As long as communication is always open and breaks or detours are within reason, then it should be a lenient enough system for them to not be overburdened with rigidity to abstain from menial tasks.

8. Trust the team
Working remote takes a lot of trust. Trust also destresses work-life interactions as many who don’t require constant observance can continue their duties as usual.