Now we are all in new conditions and running the engagement is also moving online. So, how to increase the engagement of remote employees, and why is it necessary? Let's talk about this in today's article.
Keeping remote employees engaged is a valuable parameter for a company's performance, as it affects employee performance, and it’s important not to confuse it with happiness in the workplace or employee satisfaction. Engagement is a person's emotional attachment to the company, which affects the efficiency of work and the general desire of the employee to work in this particular area and with these tasks.
Employee involved:
works productively and efficiently;
remains loyal to the company, even if the employer is going through hard times;
gives feedback to HR or a manager.
Remote work is different from the usual office environment. The HR manager in this situation is the first employee in the company that comes across the changes since it needs to adapt not only itself but all employees too. Remote engagement has its own nuances.
Colleagues now don’t meet in the office every day, they don’t have small talks in the workplace or during the coffee breaks, and it’s difficult to track down problems if they arise. At the same time, not every employee will be ready to go “complain” to HR if something is wrong, since he or she may be afraid of negative consequences or simply not know who it is better to turn to. Therefore, the usual monitoring of the situation is simply not available.
It's not easy for everyone to switch to online mode. Employees can “disappear” from communication or communicate exclusively with the team and team lead, without contacting HR. This is fraught with hidden discontent, suppression of problems, and a breach of trust. Some employees may feel uncomfortable, especially newcomers.
Employees’ anxiety and confusion over the situation in the world can distract them and make them less focused and involved. Oftentimes, the drop in productivity and engagement is the result of stress that neither HR nor the manager may be aware of. Someone may worry that they will be fired because of the crisis, and fear each of their mistakes, someone may be constantly distracted by news and forecasts. But without the usual communication, unfortunately, there is a chance you will never learn anything of this.
Any involvement needs to be maintained and increased, regardless of the format of the work, for instance, offline businesses outsource content writing company. Before you increase the engagement, you need to understand what level it is at now, so it is important to measure it.
The most popular way to measure engagement is the Q12 survey from the Gallup Institute of Public Opinion. This questionnaire consists of 12 simple questions to which you can only answer “yes” or “no”. It allows you to understand how involved each employee is and what the overall team involvement is. This is a great survey to build in Ving.
Measuring engagement on a regular basis allows you to keep track of the company's situation. You will see both the general state of affairs and the points that need to be strengthened. For example, if the majority of employees respond that no one has spoken to them about success in the last six months, you might conclude that the company needs to introduce regular 1:1 meetings and Performance reviews.
Even during remote work, it is important to continue dealing with employee involvement and not to put everything on “pause” until the end of the lockdown. The quarantine will go away and employees can go with it. The main tool for increasing and measuring engagement remotely is automation.
Imagine, this feature turns on at login and allows the employee to choose what mood they are in today. Thanks to monitoring, HR can always be in the know of the current situation, and employees can report if something goes wrong. Not every person wants to personally contact their immediate supervisor or HR with existing problems, and if you have such a system, it subtly asks about the mood.
Having the ability to create any polls for employees will greatly simplify this task. Special systems calculate the results themselves and give you an answer for engagement, and you just have to draw the necessary conclusions. Ving is a great tool that you can use to build these polls from Gallop.
The employee should have a simple feedback tool. For example, the ability to quickly request a 1:1 meeting with an HR specialist and discuss the problem that has arisen in work processes or in the team.
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Remote work requires transformation from both HR and employees. At the same time, HR is at the head of these changes, because often it depends on the adaptation of employees to new conditions. Employee engagement is highly valuable for the company’s performance regardless of the situation. To maintain and increase engagement, it needs to be measured and tracked. After all, modern problems require modern solutions and automation is indispensable. Together with the right HRM system, you will keep employees engaged and always understand what is happening in the company. While also allowing them to stay productive while working from home.