Ways for Managers to Connect and Keep Remote Employees Engaged

While the quarantines, masks and social distancing that drove many organizations to remote work are just a fading memory, U.S. organizations still face worker engagement issues and managers must be intentional in helping all workers stay connected and engaged. 

The most recent Gallup findings show that remote workers are actually slightly more engaged than on-site employees, but experience more distress. By making room for open dialogue with your remote and hybrid employees and continuing to offer opportunities for growth and development, autonomy, and connection, managers prioritize trust and help them feel supported.

Managers and leaders all want employees who take ownership of their work. They know the costs of disengaged workers: lost time, lost customers, lost innovation, and lost revenue. But we're mistaken when we assume engagement has anything to do with working onsite. Worker engagement is much more nuanced.

Common causes of worker disengagement:

1. Inefficiencies and rework

2. Poor leadership

3. Bureaucracy

4. Lack of agreed-on employee goals, challenges and variety

5. Not enough quality communciation with a leader or manager

Talk to any worker anywhere and you’ll hear some complaints. It’s human nature to fixate on a few things that frustrate us.

And as managers, we know that some complaining is normal and often, making time to simply listen to the individual goes a long way. But what about when serious complaints and frustrations go unheard (which is much easier when workers aren’t in the office)? Or worse, when they stop complaining because they stop caring?

Jim is in sales and his organization works with a Customer Relationship Management system that is cumbersome. He struggles to send emails, document contact history and retrieve records. He received little training on the system when he started and instead learns by trial and error (or by asking busy sales colleagues). The process is slow and he’s frustrated. But after his first few gentle hints to his manager about the system were brushed aside, he feels stuck with a system that slows him down. He stops caring about efficiencies. He stops mentioning his frustration. His sales are adequate and no one appears to care that they could instead be amazing.

Sometimes, of course, managers feel powerless to affect change, facing some of the same frustrations employees face: antiquated systems or processes, absent leaders or shareholders calling shots with limited understanding of the business. We ourselves may not be fully engaged.

But we are not truly powerless. We can do something.

We can investigate training opportunities. We can tear down barriers and silos. We can hand out greater authority to frontline workers. And we can listen and communicate better. Let’s look at some specifics.

Managers, learn more Strategies for Success for Leading your Remote Team at one of our most popular interactive, virtual seminars.

8 ways to build remote employee engagement

Frequent and intentional communication helps employees feel connected and heard. Feeling connected is a basic human need supported by research, reminds positivepsychology.com. In response to social contact, our brains produce oxytocin, a powerful hormone linked to trust, respect, confidence and motivation to help others in the workplace.

Feeling isolated can cause feelings of social pain, involving the same regions of the brain that are activated when we experience physical pain.

Are your workers feeling cut off from information, resources or people?

This can cause fear, frustration or lack of motivation. Your staff needs to hear from you often, suggests Jennifer Robison for gallup.com.

Schedule team meetings as well as one-on-one, face-to-face time with each person to make sure employees feel heard and valued. Use this time to:

1. Build personal connections by talking about more than work. 

   Whether it's asking about their daughter’s birthday party, the family pet, a bad day, progress on a new hobby - caring about employees as people helps build strong, trusting relationships. It shows that you're listening and that their lives matter.

2. Share information about your business or industry as you learn it.

   Because employees like to know what’s going on and want to feel connected, share information. They don't hear the lunchroom chatter. They want the unvarnished view of the challenges ahead.

3. Ask about the individual’s concerns, barriers or fears.

   Encourage employees to share their perspectives. Show empathy when they talk about ideas or worries.

4. Revisit evolving priorities.

   Regularly discuss your expectations, the organization's priorities and the individual’s progress. Things can shift quickly. So it's important to revisit assignments often.

5. Gather ideas and input from the employee’s perspective. 

   Getting this input can help you make the best decisions.

6. Give corrective feedback (and encouragement). 

   Stay watchful so you know if someone isn't following new procedures or processes. Show that you’re paying attention. And recognize even small strides in the right direction.

7. Say thank you.

   Notice and recognize not only day-to-day effort or work, but also things that go above and beyond expectations.

8. Provide opportunities for growth, meaning, variety and autonomy within employees’ jobs. 

   Broad definitions of job roles encourage employees to take ownership of challenges that lie outside their immediate assigned tasks. This kind of job enrichment helps motivate people to innovate and solve problems proactively, suggests a shrm.org report.

   In addition to making employees more valuable to your company, when employees enhance their skills through training, they are more likely to engage fully in their work, because they get greater satisfaction from mastering new tasks, according to the report.

With all that’s happening around us, it’s easy to get distracted from employee engagement. Take steps to connect with and empower workers to help boost engagement.