This is the second post in a 3-part series exploring the common experiences from the initial move to work from home en masse, and a look at the areas to strengthen as we continue to leverage the home office in the regular course of business. Click Here to read the first installment on Monitoring, or continue reading as we discuss the importance of finding new and better ways to Motivate our remote teams.
When many dipped their toes in the Work at Home (WAH) waters for the first time in March 2020, they did so eagerly. For those who were able to work remotely, most were fortunate to even have the opportunity to continue working, given the number of people who were laid off across the country and around the world. After roughly six months, though, the silver lings can begin to dull and the monotony of both living and working from home weighs heavy.
The challenge is this: How can we motivate our remote staff to be eager to sign on for a shift? How can we make sure they feel recognized and rewarded for their efforts, when we have limited direct contact?
Not that we need to make this any more challenging, but we also have to consider that there is an increased opportunity for some to take advantage of the distance, and shirk their duties knowing their supervisor is literally miles away. We can’t rely solely on heavy handed discipline to keep our teams in line. That’s not truly effective when we’re on site together, and the slope is even more slippery with a remote team. If the only motivation to work is to avoid punishment, we’re not inspiring our staff to do a good job. They are just inspired to duck. Any monitoring initiatives or new KPIs should include an incentive-based roll out, and the programs should find and reward top performers first, the goal being to motivate others to try for the prizes, too. The cases for discipline will present themselves in due course, and must be dealt with, but they are the lagging metric, not the leading cause for the program.
Motivating our teams starts with engagement. One-on-one sessions with supervisors and managers are more important than ever, and the carrots that people ran for while working on site may not have the same level of inspiration for those working at home. Talk to your teams, and ask what they need out of work, and out of life. While we can’t be guaranteed to please everyone, we can find trends that will help to engage better with the majority of our peers. And just the conversation, demonstrating that you care and are willing to talk and listen, can have a profound impact on employee morale.
One positive thing the COVID pandemic has led to in our society is creative problem solving. We can’t have a team pizza party in the breakroom, but we can order food to be delivered to someone’s home. We can’t chat around the water cooler, but we can use tools like Zoom, Slack or Microsoft Teams to start up virtual chat rooms and video conferences.
We can inject some levity into the conversations with trivia competitions (general trivia or work-related questions), or even general ice-breaker questions like “If you could invite one celebrity or historical figure to a private dinner, who would you invite and why?” Have the team weigh in and vote for a favorite response, so even if someone doesn’t have a creative answer, they have weight as a judge and can still be engaged in the dialogue.
It’s human nature to act on the things that directly benefit us. Learn what incentivizes your remote teams, and find ways to introduce gamification into your work at home program to keep everyone engaged and satisfied. The KPIs will follow.
