The top three tips to keep remote workers happy

Being proactive about remote workers’ wellness is the best way to maintain high levels of job satisfaction, productivity and performance — and the best way to avoid high turnover.

Remote jobs come with many benefits, and it continues to be the most popular choice among workers.

However, it’s not without its own difficulties. Indeed, remote workers face unique challenges and even they can become disgruntled or otherwise put off on the job.

One of the unique problems with remote work is that it’s not as easy to readily gauge how employees are doing as it can be when everyone works in the same office.

Instead, RemoteWorker.co.uk is encouraging businesses to be proactive when it comes to remote workers’ wellbeing, and take steps to ensure employee satisfaction.

Prevention is often the best cure, and the same holds true for remote work. To avoid high turnover and make sure your remote team is in tip-top shape, there are 3 key steps businesses and HR professionals can take:

 

How to keep remote workers happy

Three of the best ways to keep your remote team happy are:

 

1. Look out for warning signs

Global HR firm Randstad listed this key step as one of the critical elements for managing a remote workforce.

It’s just as effective for helping to stem the tide of dissatisfaction before it starts.

Warning signs can include behaviours like a team member participating less in meetings or chats, or seeming less enthusiastic and more withdrawn.

Randstad pointed out that these signs can be “subtle” and not as easy to detect as seeing someone’s face, but all the same cautioned that this is an important part of checking in your remote team.

 

2. Keep up with face-to-face interaction

This is not making a case for in-person events or forcing the team to have physical meetups. Face-to-face interactions can be facilitated easily and safely using virtual tools, and can be important for several reasons.

First, seeing an employee’s face can give insight into their emotional state and help detect dissatisfaction.

But, more importantly, it signals to the employee that you care about their wellbeing on more than just a superficial level.

Regular face-to-face, one-on-one checkups can also give an unhappy employee the opportunity to address any concerns and solve the issue once and for all.

 

3. Make an effort to provide recognition

Renowned US consulting firm Gartner found that positive reinforcement can make a world of difference for employees, especially amid job uncertainty.

For a remote team, something as simple as public acknowledgment or a token of appreciation helps them realise their hard work is appreciated even when they’re working behind a computer screen miles away.

In turn, this boosts employee motivation and job satisfaction, which research has shown has a positive impact on productivity and greatly decreases the chances that staff will quit.

Remote work may be known, and loved, for its independent nature, but there are still ways business and HR leaders can adapt to the new model and provide the same — or an even higher — level of care and consideration to their remote team.

Find the latest remote jobs in the UK via RemoteWorker.co.uk.