There will be a lot of distractions in their homes and work may suffer. Get the advice you need to … Whether you have just started working from home with a new remote job or you’ve been working remotely for years, it’s true that there can be psychological effects of working from home. Effective communication is an essential factor while working from home, HR, as well as the employees, must make sure to communicate daily, as it will keep everyone in the loop about the current state of the company. In the real world, employees have to put effort into working effectively from home and creating an appropriate “WFH environment”. Long days spent at home can lead to feelings of isolation and disconnect, which often lead to a sharp drop in staff morale. The virtual happy hour has gained some popularity in recent months (though I’d opt for a “happy half-hour”), and you can use it as more than just a perfunctory gathering. However, especially these days, when everybody is working remotely due to coronavirus, it’s important to engage your community online. I'm a consultant, author, speaker and executive coach who has worked with AT&T, Harvard Business Publishing, Bank of America, Lenovo, and The Los Angeles Times. Several years ago, I worked with an investment firm and measured the levels of engagement and work satisfaction of employees in the office versus those who worked from home. Increasing your employee engagement in the workplace can be a tricky situation. Employees will thank you for respecting their time and helping them work more efficiently. When delegating a task or asking a group to take on a project, define the work to be done in detail. Setting clear expectations is the first thing you need to do if you want to ensure high engagement among your employees who are working from home. While giving employees the answers and doing the work yourself might be quicker in the short term, coaching your team and giving them autonomy will help improve your team’s overall engagement levels and save you time in the long run as they build their expertise. Remote working can be difficult when you’re used to being surrounded by your teammates every day and have the buzz of the office to keep you going. I'm a consultant, author, speaker and executive coach who has worked with AT&T, Harvard Business Publishing, Bank of America, Lenovo. Take advantage of different mediums and technology for different messages. Discipline is a prime factor to make work-from-home effective. On-Demand – 60 min Working from home is becoming a necessity in today’s modern workplace. Here are some suggestions for how to boost your engagement, both on your own, and tapping into other people when you are working from home. Working from home is still a somewhat new concept for many employers, so data on remote work is still quite limited. What’s more, they rated the same leaders higher – as stronger communicators, better strategically, and even more inspiring — than team members who were sitting in offices just down the hall from those leaders. In addition, I'm a co-author of The Inspiring Leader: Unlocking the Secrets of How Extraordinary Leaders Motivate, and the Harvard Business Review article Making Yourself Indispensable. Firstly, it leads to an increase in productivity and efficiency in the workplace. Yet, even before the recent COVID-19 outbreak, remote working can be a challenge for many organizations looking to engage their teams and employees effectively. When employees genuinely enjoy the work atmosphere, they are pushed to work more efficiently and productively. You can also improve engagement by increasing the option of working from home. Even as companies have some employees returning to the office, nothing about our current circumstances is optimal. 10. Since walking down the hall to chat with an employee is out, the old-school phone is a decent substitute. (Just like an elementary school composition – topic sentence and supporting evidence.) You may opt-out by. Watch out for ambiguous language and trim the corporate speak. And most people, even seasoned executives, aren’t as good at communicating off the cuff as they believe. This also means setting boundaries for kids, pets, family members, or roommates. Set clear deliverables and specific metrics that will enable you to track outcomes and measure results effectively. Offer Work-life Balance. 1. Some 24% of workers report they are equally productive working from home and in an office. However, if you need them to work from home, as is the case with the coronavirus outbreak, then maintaining that engagement can be trickier. Of course, none of this research was conducted within the context of a Global Pandemic forcing people to work remotely, but in speaking with the employees  who worked from home in my client survey, I gleaned several insights into what drove their higher levels of engagement and satisfaction, and why they thought more highly of their leaders. Work-from-home employees also reported improved work satisfaction, and their attrition rate halved. I help leaders drive revenue growth. As telework becomes increasingly widespread, managers will need to adjust their leadership styles to ensure employee engagement out of the office. Find your Facebook tribe. Even as companies have some employees returning to the office, nothing about our current circumstances is optimal. Especially those who may be juggling childcare and school expectations, negotiating work-from-home schedules and spaces with a spouse, partner or roommates, or simply overwhelmed by the stress of today's reality. Remote work is not easy to manage, but communication can sort things for everyone. In the previous article How to increase community engagement, we focused on in-person communities. However, these 15 working from home productivity statistics all seem to suggest there’s significant value in allowing employees to work from home, or in working from home yourself: 1. Increasing employee engagement at work has been shown to directly relate to organisational success – profitability, productivity, customer loyalty and reduced levels of absenteeism and turnover. Engaging with your employees and your teams is easier in a face-to-face situation. Here are 15 ways you can improve engagement at your company — and grow your bottom line as a result: 1. Gives the freedom to work as per their schedule, time and productivity levels It … According to a recent Gallup survey on the State of the American Workplace, the number of employees working remotely has increased from 39% to 43% from 2012 to 2016.. Not only is the number of employees working remotely increasing, but also the amount of time these workers spend off-site … With this, organizations are met with the increasing challenge of maintaining transparency and team collaboration while working on projects together remotely. Promote transparency and collaboration The modern workplace is evolving quickly as office locations expand and work-from-home becomes more normal. Employees with friends or social connections at work tend to be more engaged and loyal workers. Morale is the driver for productivity and engagement. 2. Inc. helps entrepreneurs change the world. 3. Mind your manners. You don’t have to make it a big production, but consider making a quick call or sending a text message to an employee to say, “I was thinking of you and wanted to see how you are.” Or, “I just thought of something funny and wanted to share it with you.” This happens naturally when you interact with people at the office, but it won’t happen at all right now unless you proactively try to connect at the metaphorical water cooler. Working from home is becoming a necessity in today’s modern workplace. Yet, even before the recent COVID-19 outbreak, remote working can be a challenge for many organizations looking to engage their teams and employees effectively. It requires preparation and thought, to ensure your message is coming through loud and clear. And while videoconferencing isn’t quite 3D, we’ll call it 2.5D – it adds facial expressions, body language and the nuances of conversation. But in general, email is highly inefficient and ineffective. Being efficient while working from home is all about boundaries, as we have previously discussed. For those of you thinking to yourself, “I don’t have time for this,” I’d suggest that you will if you become more focused and efficient with the rest of your time by using the approaches suggested in points 1 and 2. If you want to retain your employees and motivate them to produce great work, first take a good look at how you are performing as you lead from home. Remote working isn’t everyone’s cup of tea. The world of traditional, 9-to-5 work is slipping away, according to Global Workplace Analytics and numerous other studies: 5 million employees (3.6% of the workforce) currently work-at-home half-time or more. © 2021 Forbes Media LLC. Instead of defaulting to email when communicating with employees working remotely, consider more effective alternatives. Begin with a clear headline topic and 2-4 key points, each of which can be expressed in a single sentence. If you need to problem solve, discuss larger volumes of content or generate an idea, make the effort to jump on a phone call or videoconference. If you need to share a file, ask a quick question or answer one, email is fine. Powerful communication doesn’t happen by chance. If you are proposing a new course of action, consider the “what” and the “why” of that action, and be explicit. Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own. Working from home is not a “set it and forget it” change. So how can you … Whenever employees have high morale, they will enjoy going to work and on top of it all, their quality of work is much higher. I share this, not as a theory or some Pollyanna plea to make lemonade from lemons. Encourage learning and development on the daily with feedback Work-from-home options and flexible timings provide freedom to employees to work from anywhere at any time. It also allows you to be task-focused and direct in other moments when you only have two minutes to share something and can’t spare any time for pleasantries. Check out our free, on-demand webinar with LumApps’ Human Resources Manager, Robbie Harris, and Morgan McDowell, Human Resources Generalist, on 10 best practices to keep employees engaged and productive while working from home. Try to encourage them to leave you alone while you are working so you can stay focused. Only 2 years ago, a Gallup study showed that 68% of employees were still not engaged and 21% were actually actively disengaged from work. The key to managing remote teams successfully is a meaningful goal-setting. Feeling safe, supported and appreciated at work can go a long way to improve performance and productivity but social interactions also release oxytocin, referred to as the love drug. Make an extra effort to connect on a personal level. Be intentional and precise in your communication. We all expected that employees who worked in close proximity to each other would record higher scores for everything from clear communication to teamwork and camaraderie. Remote workers also report better work-life balance (91 percent), stronger focus/productivity (79 percent), and less stress (78 percent). Working from home is a convenient trend that's gaining traction. Employee engagement is at an all-time low and one way to encourage employees to care more about their job–encourage them to foster friendships. Their answers can help leaders today improve three critical behaviors that will move the needle on employee engagement while their workers are quarantined: 1. Download the report, 10 Tips to Boost Employee Engagement while Working From Home. Try to keep the boundaries friendly and playful, but make sure you stick to them. Make it easy for your listeners to discern what’s important. Updated: May 4. Practicing flexibility as one an employee engagement ideas for work from home has the following benefits – It allows remote workers to understand and inculcate a feeling of responsibility. While people work from home all over the world, leaders need to understand that there is a tremendous opportunity to increase employee engagement and commitment right now. Providing these facilities will result in more engaged employees than unhappy employees working in cubicles from 9 to 5. Understanding how to manage and engage employees can yield the same, if not better, results than when employees are in the office. The first days of a new employee leaves an indelible mark on them and sets the stage for their overall engagement with the organization. It provides at least a 2-dimensional perspective, adding tone and color to your message or conversation, and it’s quick. At the same time, individual workers save between $2,000 and $4,000 annually by working at home. Work from home goals Working from home means less time commuting to the office and less time getting ready to go to work. Building Interdependence and Trust. If you normally work from home, you may find yourself with family members in your precious workspace. Your employees will perform infinitely better when they don’t have to guess at what you’re asking for. But you can help your company – and employees – emerge stronger from the coronavirus pandemic with these top 10 engagement ideas. The Manifest surveyed 365 American workers on how they stay productive while working from home. I’ve worked in offices where a group of people sitting within a stone’s throw of each other spend most of the day trading emails, when a quick conversation could have provided instant understanding. Staying connected while working from home should come naturally – whether it’s speaking with clients, vendors, coworkers, managers or direct reports. 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