Remote working has been the norm for many for nearly a year now. From allowing more flexibility in the day to increasing work-life balance, remote working comes with many benefits. In fact, 76% of people claim that they’re more productive when working remotely because they experience fewer distractions. But, along with many positives. Remote working comes with challenges. Some key challenges include:

Loneliness

Going from a busy, social office to the confines of a solo study room or a desk in a bedroom can be challenging. Just chatting over a coffee or going for a stroll with a fellow colleague can make a substantial difference when it comes to building connections and feeling part of a team.

Without these little interactions throughout the day, employees can feel lonely and isolated.  According to the 2020 State of Remote Work Report, nearly 20% of remote workers say they struggle with loneliness when remote working.

Lack of communication

 When you are in an office, it’s easy to turn around and speak to a manager or fellow employee about the work you’ve been tasked. But when a quick question requires a call or an email, it can sometimes feel like an unnecessary interruption to a person’s day. As a result, this can lead to a lack of productivity, alongside feelings of frustration and a lack of clarity over tasks.

Infrequent communication amongst employees can also lead to feelings of being left out. Feeling left out from team projects, or out of the loop with company activity as a whole, can lead to resentment and result in a lack of motivation.

Lack of a work-life balance

Despite the benefit of increased flexibility, the State of Remote Working Report found many had difficultly switching off from work. Working from home, it is easy for the boundaries between work and home life to become blurred. Whilst it’s been feared that remote working will lead to a less productive workday, instead, workers actually spend on average, an additional three hours a day on their computers.

So, taking these challenges into consideration, how can a remote working strategy be improved to ensure employees are content, working their correct number of hours and remain motivated? Here are our top tips to improve your remote working strategy.

Communication is key

There are many apps that make communication between teams and colleagues easy. Teams, Slack and Trello are just a few. But tools alone are not enough. It’s important managers schedule in time to speak to their team and check their mood, workload, and generally how they’re managing their situation. It is also important to encourage open communication whenever they feel is necessary, so there’s not the ‘but I don’t want to disturb someone’ mindset.

Further to this, communicating work correctly between teams is also important for a successful remote working strategy. Miscommunication of a task is easily rectified in an open office when everyone is seated close and frequently in conversation. But when employees are isolated it’s vital there are calls with whole teams so everyone can provide updates of their progress. Project management apps like Asana and Wrike enable progress to be tracked and tasks to be assigned clearly.

Provide recognition

When employees are in the office, recognition for work is given often almost naturally a lot of the time. But when employees are remote, there is a risk achievement and recognition can be overlooked. By sharing information about achievements amongst the wider team and company, it can help make people feel more visible and that their work is recognised.

This not only helps the company stay aware of what’s going on in other teams but helps encourages collaboration and helps boost motivation amongst staff members.

Encourage a work-life balance

As we’ve established, it’s easy for people to end up working longer hours than they are required. Some measures to put in place to help improve work-life balance include setting reminders to take breaks. In the office, it may not be uncommon to spend ten minutes in the kitchen talking to a colleague. Or going to get a coffee. Whilst these can seem unproductive, they help boost mood and allow for the brain to refocus on the task upon the return.

Alongside regular breaks, employees should be reminded they can be clear when they are ‘leaving’ work. This can be done by changing a status via an app to ‘offline’ or blocking out time in the work schedule. This helps inform other staff members that someone is away and will not be responding.

Ensure strong company culture and values

The company culture is at the heart of a business. It is the values, ideals, and goals of the organisation. But, when working remotely, it can be challenging to continue to communicate and reflect these clearly to employees.

Some ways to help improve company culture in a remote team could include:

• Encouragement of open conversation between teams. In the office, colleagues would often chat by the watercooler, or turn to the person next to them for a conversation. When this isn’t possible, it’s important to check in frequently with colleagues and have calls purely for the purpose of ‘catching up.’
• To encourage employees to stay active, competitions could be run between departments based on how many miles they swim/cycle/run etc using the app Strava. This helps encourage communication between other teams and helps motivate staff to exercise for benefits outside of their own fitness!
• Ensure recognition for good work is given, even if that’s simply verbally acknowledging that a particular piece of work has been well received. Showing appreciation will help staff remain motivated.

 Having good company culture is massively beneficial for both employee acquisition and retention. In fact, 65% of employees say that their company’s culture is a key factor when deciding to stay at their job. Further to this, 56% of employees find a good workplace culture to be more important than salary. So, when refining your remote working strategy, good company culture should come high on the priority list for improvement.

Managing a remote workforce

Despite lockdown restrictions easing (slowly), remote working looks here to stay for many. Whether that’s full-time or a hybrid version. So, it’s important for companies to get their remote working strategy right.