Since early this year, COVID-19 has changed the global economy and the job market landscape. More people have started working from home due to safety reasons and lockdowns. This also means that you need to change the way you run the business if you want to ensure maximum employee productivity.
With more people having to work from home, you no longer can directly influence employee productivity and well-being. However, there are ways to support them remotely by implementing a few changes to your work structure.
1. Offer Flexible Work Hours
To adapt to the pandemic, offer your employees flexible working hours. Working from home isn’t the same as working at the office, and your employees will often be juggling between job tasks and household duties. They may also be parents or caregivers, which are vital roles in a family that take up a lot of time when the family is also home.
Allowing your remote employees to create their schedules can be beneficial for both you and them. By allowing them to set up their own working hours, they’re more likely to work when their productivity is at peak level. Additionally, since they’ll be working from home, they’re more capable of working additional hours or outside of the typical workday, especially if they don’t have extra family responsibilities.
2. Maintain Strong Lines of Communication
Maintaining a strong line of communication is vital for collaborating with remote employees. However, you do not want to appear overbearing and create a rigid environment. You can use software and apps that allow employees to stay in touch about tasks, deadlines, and other updates.
Be sure to take breaks from work talk to keep your employees engaged. Socializing with your employees digitally creates a friendly bond between you and them. As a result, they’ll feel more comfortable working for you and will be more motivated. Video calls are the most popular ways to stay in touch among remote employees and employers.
3. Ask for Feedback
In a typical office or workplace, getting employee feedback is easy and often a necessary part of maintaining an optimal work environment. However, when switching to remote working, it is easy to overlook this critical factor when setting up remote environments. You should always take employee feedback to make things run effectively and smoothly.
If you’re thinking of using project management software or communications software, make sure your employees are on board with it and understand how to use it to maximize efficiency. Employees may be more reluctant to ask for benefits or tools to help them if they don’t see you daily as they would in an office setting. You should always inquire about how you can make things better for them and take steps accordingly.
4. Focus Less on Hours and More on Delivery
Even when employees work from the office, they’re not always at their best productivity levels. Every person has different timeframes throughout the day when they’re the most efficient. To take advantage of this phenomenon, focus more on deliverables than hours worked.
If your employees can meet the target deliverables within the daily timeframe, it’s better not to fixate on how many hours they’re working. Productivity is better measured by deliverables as opposed to how many hours an employee works.
5. Provide the Necessary Equipment
Many employees rely on office tools to get their daily tasks done. If they don’t have the necessary tools at home, you should try to help them to the best of your possibilities by providing them with the essential equipment. Even if they already have their own devices and equipment, there’s still the chance that their devices might break down, preventing them from working.
To avoid these scenarios, work with a computer repair service company. Such services have all the solutions you might need for repairing essential equipment and devices such as computers, laptops, monitors, etc. This helps your remote employees get back to work as quickly a possible without sacrificing productivity.
Adapt to the New Normal
Since remote work is becoming the new norm in most workplaces, it’s increasingly important to ensure your employees have the support they need to succeed. Be on the same page about their work from home needs—be it a change in regular work hours or increased technology needs. As your employees adapt to a remote office setup, make sure to check in with them and ask how you can help them make the most out of their remote work situation.
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