At the moment, millions of people are having to work from home due to the global pandemic. And because of this, productivity and motivation levels might be dwindling.
When employees are in the comfort of their own home instead of the office, they have numerous distractions around them – whether that be in the form of their kids, the TV, their partners, etc. So how do you overcome this? While waiting for your office to receive a covid-19 cleanup and for the virus to pass, you could do the following to ensure that your business keeps running amidst this crisis:
Frequent Communication
To make sure that your staff are still engaged and productive, ensure that you’re holding frequent catch-up meetings. This will guarantee that your staff are still on track and that no projects are left undone.
Thankfully there are plenty of technologies you could use for this, including the likes of Zoom and Teams. It will also ensure that you stay connected with your clients, no matter where they are located in the world.
Continue to Show Appreciation
During this time, your employees need to know that you appreciate what they are doing for the business. Therefore, it’s a good idea to frequently acknowledge their efforts.
Whether this is simply mentioning their achievement on a video call or setting up a cloud-based employee rewards system, it will create a culture of recognition that will keep them committed.
Committed and engaged employees can directly improve productivity and turnover of a company, so anything that you can do to improve this will be a huge benefit. Don’t just do the bare minimum and introduce a ‘dress down Friday’ or free doughnuts. Really think about what your employees might want that you can provide such as MEWA insurance, reward and recognition schemes.
Create a ‘Virtual Community’
For those who aren’t used to working remotely 24/7, it will undoubtedly take a toll on their mental health. This is because they are no longer able to talk to their fellow employees in person making them feel disconnected.
To try and mitigate this, you could create a virtual community, setting a certain amount of time aside each week to talk through how everyone is coping, what they have planned for the weekend, etc.
Create Regular Team Building Activities
Another clever way of increasing motivation is to host regular remote team building activities. Helping to boost engagement and the connection between them, it’s a fun way for them to work as a team remotely. From quizzes to house tours, there are so many activities to choose from that will strengthen their unity.
Make it Flexible
Although it’s important to not encourage distractions, you need to allow a certain amount of flexibility in their working day. If your employees feel restricted and that they should be at their laptop every hour of the day, their motivation will start to fade. Be understanding and don’t force them to stay at their desk until the end of the working day.
Final Thoughts
So, there you go! Those are 5 tips that you can use to help to keep your employees motivated during the pandemic. No matter what technique you opt to implement, you’re one more step towards creating a highly engaged team that will help to keep the business running throughout this unprecedented time.