4 Facts About Remote Worker Engagement
“The human spirit must prevail over technology.” - Albert Einstein
Technology was designed by humanity to serve humanity. Especially during this time, it’s important to remember that the purpose of technology is to create more connections and open the doors to new kinds of relationships. It can be easy to forget that when you are home alone for days on end with no one to talk to but the computer monitor.
Work can start to feel wholly digital; type, email, post, read, watch, forward, like, share….
But remote workers, when productive and managed properly can still be engaged, create human connection and contribute to employers just as effectively as someone in the office. Even before Covid-10, remote work was on a huge rise as companies learned to leverage and work technology into their businesses.
Here are 4 facts about remote worker engagement:
One - Workers who spend time working remotely are the most likely to be engaged. In 2012, 39% of employees worked remotely in some way. By 2016 that number had grown to 43% and is still growing. When workers can be productive from home this creates job flexibility and job flexibility creates engagement and performance. In fact, 54% of workers stated they would leave their job for one that offers more flexible work time - Gallup.com
Two - Managers need to hone their communications skills to manage workers in various ways. This can be broken down into 5 types of key communication: role and relationship development, quick connect, check-in, developmental coaching and progressive review. Conversations with remote workers need to embrace individual achievements, collaboration and what’s happening overall in the company.
Three - Remote workers are 3x more likely to be engaged if they receive feedback from their manager on a frequent basis. Feedback and communication are much different than a performance review. There is a lot of research which shows that performance reviews may actually be harmful to employee engagement. So when managers communicate with employees it can’t always be about job performance, but needs to be caring. When dialogue is kept up between workers and managers, workers are more engaged and motivated to produce.
Four - Isolation is different from loneliness. Isolation comes about when a person is too far removed from others for too long. This can be easily resolved by granting access to people, decisions, technology and equipment. A person can have access to people, but still feel lonely. Loneliness results from lack of meaningful human connection.
A formal mentoring program can really help to combat this and brings about increased morale and engagement. Through the use of mentoring software (like Wisdom Share from Mentor Resources), workers are matched up with mentors who they frequently connect with. Partnerships work together to boost skills, educate and enhance the professional experience. Mentoring is vital to remote workers and much of the process can be done remotely through the use of software to get around geographic boundaries. Remote mentorship is a proven tool to engage workers.
Mentor Resources can help any company to leverage technology to create tailored career development programs that are cost-effective. Our mentoring software - Wisdom Share is a cloud-based program that is simple and comes with guided workflows. Included are tools for administrators to attract, enroll, connect and guide participants. We also provide analytics to ensure you can monitor your employee development program and easily see ROI metrics.
Reach out to us today for Free Demonstration of our software.