When you’re a leader in a business that offers remote working to all or some of its employees, it can be challenging to provide the proper support to these remote workers. When you are all together in one place, it’s far easier to see when someone needs help or to ensure that everyone is doing what they are meant to do. Far apart, potentially even in different countries, and it’s a different thing altogether.
However, there are some ways that leaders can support their remote workers that will keep everyone happy and productive. Read on to find out more, and you may feel it’s time to implement some of these plans into your business.
Maintain Consistent Communication
When employees work from home, they can often feel disconnected from their workplace and the organisations that employ them. This can lead to becoming less productive and even to feeling underappreciated. Of course, this means that the quality of their work is affected in a negative way.
The key to preventing this from happening is to maintain consistent communication. By checking in with your employees regularly and ensuring that they know they can get in touch with you should they need to, to ask questions or make requests or offer feedback, the employee will feel much more connected. They will work harder knowing that someone is overseeing what they are doing, and they will feel as though they are needed. This all adds up to much better work and a much better feeling all round.
Provide Support For Physical and Mental Health
Some people thrive when working remotely; they find they can enjoy a much better work-life balance, and they are productive because they are in a comfortable environment. Others, however, aren’t so happy with the idea, and it can take its toll on them. This is why it’s crucial that you provide support for physical and mental health. It’s part of your duty of care as a manager, and it’s a good thing to do for your colleagues too.
Using HR software to keep up to date with what everyone needs means that you won’t neglect anyone’s requirements, and you’ll always be able to help when necessary, whatever that might take.
Help With The Work-Life Balance
As we’ve mentioned above, some employees are more than happy to organise their own work-life balance arrangements. However, others might have problems separating their home life from their work life when they are remote workers, and as a manager, one of your jobs is to ensure that this balance is met. The last thing you want is for your staff to be working very long hours just because they can – there has to be an end point.
Training will help with this. If someone has never worked from home before, training to give them an idea of how to separate the two halves of their life can make a big difference, and it will help you in the end – as much as additional work is useful, it’s also detrimental in the long run because it can cause burnout.