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Posted 04/15/2020 by Editor poweredbyCULTURE

10 Crucial Employee Engagement Ideas for Remote Workers


10 Crucial Employee Engagement Ideas for Remote Workers

These ideas are designed to help you with your current situation of having remote workers in a very unpredictable situation. They are also provided to help you when life "normalizes" again. While we strongly believe that you are poweredbyCULTURE and can handle the ebbs of any situation, we also feel that the more you focus on best practices now, the further off you'll be when things settle.


This is uncharted territory for all of us. Most poweredbyCULTURE leaders have built amazing teams and cultures. While this will be difficult, this situation will be no different. You encourage you to take these ten ideas and do like you do with everything, MAKE THEM BETTER.


First the hard one.


1) Be positive but be honest. As leaders, we want to tell people what they want to hear and motivate them. It is crucial for the future that you don't make promises you can't keep. Your concerns are everyone's health, cash flow, keeping the culture together and right-sizing the business for an effective relaunch in 1-3 months. Their concerns are cash flow, job security, and health. Make sure everyone is on the same page and while this is not your preference there are no promises.


In my career, I have run two remote enterprises. One group was in 26 cities and 96 employees, the other 8 cities with 40 employees. These are some of the tactics we used to keep remote workers engaged.


2) Daily Huddles. If you don't do daily huddles now, it is time to start. Daily huddles at 8:30 am commit people to waking up and being on their game. Keep them short, 15 minutes long. Have the team report good news from the previous day and their game plan for today. Require everyone to show up with energy, purpose and more energy. The leader of the huddle should make sure that they are positive and hi-energy as well. Keep it fun but get people to work.


3) Master Video Calls and Communications. The first challenge of video calls is the first 5-15 minutes getting everyone logged in. Perfect this. The second challenge of video call is keeping people's attention. Announce before each call that you wish for people to put their phones down and turn their emails off. We want this video meeting to be as useful as a face to face meeting. We can't allow mental interruptions and distractions to ruin what can be a very positive experience.


4) Create a "no corona zone". The talk of the corona virus creates fear and depression. The law of attraction says what we think about creates more of this in our experience. In this case, continued discussions of the pandemic will create more fear and depression. It is human nature but you can create positive momentum by reducing the ongoing discussions about it at least in a work setting.


5) Fill new downtime with projects.  Studies have shown that more than 50% of a worker's day is filled with interruptions and distractions from co-workers. Believe it or not, your new remote workers will have free time that they are not used to having. Create and communicate a strategy for improving some aspect of your company and assign projects. Keeping them busy will be better for them.


6) Encourage workouts and outside time. We are all energy creatures. We get a lot of daily energy from interacting with others. Since they will be missing that, they will feel energy depleted unless you do something. Schedule group video workouts. Hire local yoga studio instructors. Get your team moving and energized.


7) Create video town halls.  Focus on education and communication. If people can at least twice a week to learn and be fed information it will increase on-going engagement.


8) Create a song of the day or a video of the day system. Let the team submit their song of the day and put someone in charge of sending it out company-wide with why this submitter finds this song motivational. This can also be done with youtube videos, although they are typically longer in time. 


9) Find ways to virtually pat people on the back. Employee rewards, feedback, and recognition should not stop just because everyone is out of the office.


10) Weekly team video meeting. Encourage each person on the video to say something they are proud of. Something they have done or something others have done. Use these videos to recognize and reward each other. Then get down to business. 


If you have additional ideas that you wish to share place email me at craig.burris@poweredbyCULTURE.com..