Do you have a WAT relationship with your colleagues?
7 tips to keep home workers motivated and engaged
It's used to working from home. Even now that it has not been mandatory for a while, there are still many organizations where working from home has (partly) become the new normal. Or even an organization where employees have the freedom to work from abroad. No more stuck in traffic every day, meetings that start on time, no distractions from colleagues chatting at the coffee machine. But how do you keep team spirit, high energy and motivation alive from a distance? Effect group* collected the seven best tips for organizations with remote workers. And we'll tell you: the common thread is communication.
Tip 1: Know what's going on together
If you mainly communicate practically with each other via email and phone, you can literally lose sight of each other. Then you can just miss the fact that someone is not feeling well. The single colleague who feels lonely, the coughing colleague who hasn't been completely fit for a while, the social colleague who goes screaming crazy at home. So ask your colleague: how are you? How do you feel? Is it still possible to work from home? As a manager, make it a habit of weekly one-on-one interaction and informally drink a cup of coffee together remotely. Video calling literally provides a picture of the home situation and someone's non-verbal communication can also be significant.
Tip 2: Make clear agreements
Just do some laundry in between, take the kids to their sports training, take the dog out for a walk. As an employer, you must accept that home workers organize their working time themselves. So give them their own rhythm and trust their responsibility, but make agreements about it. Start the week with an online standup (aim the webcam a little higher!) and agree on who can be reached when and who will take on which tasks. This way, everyone knows where they stand and what is expected of them.
Tip 3: Organize regular contact moments
It's tempting to do a lot of coordination via email when you're working from home. But humans are social creatures, human interaction is important to how we feel. That's why you should build in structural, fixed contact points with each other. For example, with a weekly team kickoff via Zoom, a daily morning check-in (with gifs and emojis!) on Whatsapp and a joint free mibo where you share your successes and bloopers with each other. Because you can also toast together via webcam!
Tip 4: Use virtual collaboration tools
Working from home has opened up a world of digital tools for many organizations to work smartly together. Each tool has advantages and disadvantages, so be sure to try them out, share experiences with each other and then choose a number of fixed tools with the most added value. Then you make sure everyone knows all the tips & tricks, even the one colleague who is a little less “digital savvy”. At effect group*, we make extensive use of the following tools:
- Mailing, calendar, office: Google Suite
- File Management: Google Drive
- Video Calling: Meet, Teams, Zoom
- Online brainstorms: Miro, Mural
- Project Management, CRM: Gripp, Pipedrive
- Scheduling: Trello, Float
- Chat: Slack, Whatsapp
- Internal knowledge sharing: Impact Group* Knowledge Base
Tip 5: Stay Healthy!
Keep your day and night rhythm organized, take breaks on time, eat healthy and keep exercising. As an employer, you can not only facilitate tools for a healthy workplace at home, but also encourage your employees to stay fit and healthy. For example, we developed an internal health campaign for a client with online sports lessons and weekly challenges about healthy food and posture.
Tip 6: Give recognition and appreciation
Giving a compliment to an employee you see in the workplace every day is easy, but don't forget the remote workers! As an employer, show your appreciation for this by sending your employees a thank you. A shout-out from the office can do wonders for the sense of connection.
Tip 7: Make time for fun
Informal contact remains extremely important for team spirit. And with a little bit of creativity, it can be just as fun from a distance. For example, you can have lunch online together or introduce the virtual coffee machine, an ongoing video meeting where you can always join to catch up. Team building is also great from home, for example with an online pub quiz or escape room. If you really want to laugh, give your virtual free mibo a theme and you'll all appear in front of the camera dressed up. Guaranteed to be hilarious!
In shorts
Working from home offers quite a few advantages, but now many organizations also recognize the risks, so keep an eye out for each other and stay connected, with each other and with the organization. If you could use some help with that, you can of course always call us.
