How to keep employees connected while working from home

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If you’re working in a job that can be done from home, the chances are that you are working remotely. Research shows that almost three in five (Opens in a new window) (59 per cent) of people that can do their jobs from home are still avoiding the office, and will continue to do so into the future.

There are clear benefits to working this way. For employees, it means a better work-life balance, with the ability to undertake their work on a schedule that works better for them, and gives them commute time back to be used for more productive pursuits, be that work or lifestyle. For the employer, it means a big boost to productivity (Opens in a new window) from each employee. Furthermore, their willingness to get work done over the weekends if it means they can be more flexible during the weekday also means a more 24/7 hour operation, which is a big boost to any modern business.

However, there is a downside to remote work: it can be isolating, and this can lead to declines in morale and general dissatisfaction with work. For those organisations that plan on continuing to allow remote work, it’s going to be important to follow some basic strategies to ensure that all employees remain connected.

1) Make sure the Internet connection to employee locations is good.

First of all, it’s important that each employee can trust in their Internet connection, and that it is fast enough to allow the employee to work on the cloud, communicate via video, and that their connection is stable at all times. This may require moving to a new Internet provider, and the employer should be willing to pay for this if it’s necessary for the employee to have access to a better connection. Thankfully, swapping providers is easier than ever (Opens in a new window).

2) Make sure all the communication apps are up to snuff.

What won’t work is giving the employee a Microsoft Teams or Zoom access, and leaving it at that. Remote communication requires tools like Slack, Asana, Monday or Basecamp to better prepare workflows and ensure that the remote employees are across the latest versions of work via these apps sharing features. Another tool that is growing in popularity is Discord, where it’s possible to set up a private group chat server that is just for the people in the team. This tool facilitates the quick messages back and forth that are too small to organise a video conference over, but allow each person in the team to be in constant contact with one another.

3) Make sure some of the conversations are social and casual in nature.

There’s a reason that video tools like Zoom now include games and other “non-work” features. One of the core benefits to working in a team is the social nature of such work, and you need a way to simulate the moments where people let their hair down and relax at work for a while. Even if you don’t want to go as far as to plan a game session, you could organise a Friday afternoon “drinks” chat, where everyone gets on Zoom and talks about anything but work.

4) Make sure everyone in the organisation is taking time off work.

This one might sound counter-intuitive; how would encouraging people to work less help them to feel connected to their work, but there’s a big concern with remote work, and that’s burn out and fatigue. People can start to feel compelled to be available at all times, every day, and that they need to answer emails immediately. Even when they come in at 1am. When burn out sets in it can be incredibly difficult and time-consuming to recover from, and can result in the employee becoming withdrawn from their team.

As an added benefit, by checking in to make sure that people are logging off and giving themselves time, you’re showing concerns for your employees, and on a very simple level that can help them to feel good about their work.

5) Organise extra-curricular “team building” activities.

It sometimes surprises people just how frequently there are extra-curricular activities within the workplace. The Friday beers, mentioned above, are one example, but think about how often a team will go out to lunch to celebrate a milestone. Or what about the annual Christmas party? Or the time that a couple of people within the organisation got tickets to an event from a client?

Then think further about just how many clubs and events tend to form within organisations, from sports teams to people that participate in game jams. Most creative organisations have groups of people that enter the “write a book in a month” challenge in NaNoWriMo, and so on.

It’s a good idea to find ways to facilitate “clubs” across remote workers. It could be a book club, a trivia night (with prizes!) or a team fitness challenge (send everyone a Fitbit and then get them to share their training data at the end of each week). If you want to tie some element of work into it, buy subscriptions to online learning tools and encourage people across the organisation to take those courses together. All of these activities will help employees feel involved in what’s going on back at the office.

6) Finally; don’t overlook remote employees for promotions.

Employees are generally concerned that if they don’t work in an office, their lack of physical presence will cost them the opportunity to step up and lead projects, much less be considered for promotion. If they see the “in office” people getting those promotions while the “out of office” people are not, they will feel increasingly disengaged in their work, assuming that they’ve hit the limit of what they can do.

It's so important to ensure that promotions are based on results, rather than presence, because often it will be the remote employees, who are not busy playing office politics, that will be the ones delivering the best outcomes. This should be written out in formal HR policy so that it becomes part of the promotion culture within the organisation.

Working from home offers benefits to both employers and employees. It’s a no-brainer in terms of being company policy, where jobs can be done remotely. However, it does involve change management, and like any change in the company, needs to have new policies and practices written around it to ensure the benefits aren’t undermined by dissatisfaction and people feeling disconnected from their jobs and workplace.