Employee engagement is vital. It can be the difference between a successful business and one that barely scrapes by. This is equally true for remote and hybrid workplaces, which are often overlooked in the engagement equation. After all, it can be challenging to gauge how engaged employees are when you’re not in the same room.

If any positives came out of the COVID-19 pandemic, it was proving that remote and hybrid working can be positive and productive. A study by the UK government found that 78% of those who worked from home said being able to work from home gave them an improved work-life balance. Similarly, another study by Stanford University revealed that nearly 40% of respondents have been more efficient while working from home.

Accordingly, the main question is, how do you improve engagement for remote employees? We’re going to examine exactly that. We’ll look at strategies to improve remote employee engagement and offer tips and ideas to get the most out of your digital workforce.

For a deeper dive, check out our whitepaper, Employee engagement strategies to build successful L&D programs.

Employee engagement is sometimes overlooked in a remote workforce. After all, if employees are meeting their targets and aren’t raising concerns, surely that means there’s nothing to worry about? Not necessarily.

Ensuring employees are engaged should be a priority for every business leader. Engaged employees are efficient, productive, proactive, and more likely to innovate. Therefore, engaged remote employees tend to produce better work on time and within budget.

It can be difficult to determine how engaged remote employees are, but it’s something business owners must be on top of. If employees aren’t engaged, they won’t be as invested in your business achieving its goals, which risks underperformance.

The benefits of remote employee engagement

When employees are engaged, it not only benefits them, but your entire organization in the following ways:

More opportunities to promote from within

These factors also contribute to cutting costs or producing consistently high-quality work, resulting in more revenue. As such, ensuring remote employees are engaged makes sense from a financial point of view.

For more information, check out our blog on building strong relationships in a remote work environment.

The challenges of maintaining remote employee engagement

Since remote teams don’t work together in the same room, measuring engagement can be tricky. It’s much harder for managers and leaders to observe when engagement levels are down, meaning potential improvements are overlooked.

However, there’s more to it than that. Below are some of the reasons it can be difficult to maintain remote employee engagement:

Limited opportunities to interact socially

For more information, read our blog post on using connection and belonging to combat loneliness in your team.

Strategies to improve remote employee engagement

The good news is that while there are challenges in maintaining engagement with remote employees, there are strategies you can implement to boost engagement. Below are just a few engagement ideas for remote workers: 

Ensure there are plenty of ways employees can communicate, which offer transparency for who is available and when

Encourage senior management to communicate with employees regularly

Be open and honest about the organization’s goals and objectives

Promote inclusivity, acknowledge achievements, and recognize great work

Encourage virtual team-building sessions and activities that go beyond discussing work 

Regularly check in with employees and schedule 1:1s

Offer thorough onboarding and training opportunities

Consider offering benefits, such as those related to employee wellness

Invest in the right technologies and tools. 

More resources to support your remote team

There are plenty of tools and resources that can make remote workspaces more engaging. Examples include everything from communication software to project management platforms. Some great tools your organization could consider are:

Communication tools, including Slack, Zoom, and Microsoft Teams

Project management platforms, including Asana, Trello, and Monday.com

Collaboration tools, including Miro and Google Workspace

Virtual team building tools, including TeamBonding and Donut

Time-tracking tools, including Toggl and Harvest

Employee recognition platforms, including Bonusly and Perkbox

Health and wellbeing resources, including Headspace and Wellable

How to measure remote employee engagement

Providing employees with the tools and resources they need to stay engaged is one thing, but measuring engagement is equally important. By not measuring employee engagement, you risk low engagement levels because you can’t say whether your strategies are successful. 

Just like there are tools to improve engagement, there are also ways to  measure engagement, such as: 

Employee surveys, which can cover a wide range of topics, such as feedback on job satisfaction, collaboration, and communication

Learning analytics and course completion data, which can be simple and fast to pull if your business utilizes a learning management system (LMS)

Communication data if your business uses a platform such as Slack or Microsoft Teams

Whether the business meets or exceeds its goals and objectives

Inspired to boost engagement? Download our whitepaper, Employee engagement strategies to build successful L&D programs, to get started! Or, you can book a demo today to find out how Go1 can help with your team’s learning needs.

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We’ll look at strategies to improve remote employee engagement and offer tips and ideas to get the most out of your digital workforce.

How to improve employee engagement in remote workplaces

Working from home is one thing. Taking care of your wellbeing while working from home is another thing entirely. 

With many people struggling with the challenges of working from home, we've looked at how to maintain employee wellbeing while working remotely, covering the importance of getting enough sleep, avoiding burnout when working remotely, setting boundaries to improve mental wellbeing, addressing the core needs of your employees, and more. 

Ready to take the next step and become a wellbeing warrior? Download the full guide now.  

Maintaining employee wellbeing when working remotely.pdf

Maintaining employee wellbeing when working remotely

The modern workforce has become increasingly complex. Faced with heavy workloads, short turnaround times and high deliverables, many workers are being asked to continually do more – with less. Here's how to maintain employee wellbeing when working remotely. 

Download the tool

The Power Hour Tool provides a solid and empowering framework for one-to-one meetings. Developed with the Emerging Stronger team, this tool zooms in on unlocking the performance, learning, and development potential of each team member. 

Supercharge your team check-ins with the Power Hour Tool

In 2020, working from home has become the new normal for many. However, there's an ongoing need to fine-tune the work-from-home experience. 

That's why in this guide, we go in-depth on ways to build more productive remote teams, covering tips to improve your productivity, using motivation to become more productive, scheduling breaks to increase the productivity of remote employees, and why focus is the key to productivity. 

Ready to take your WFH game to the next level and boost productivity? Download the full guide now. 

Building productive remote teams.pdf

Building productive remote teams

With a significant increase in the number of people working from home, it is now more crucial than ever that employees understand how to make the most of their time. As such, we analyse ways to build more productive remote teams. 

This list is for when you’re stumped on engaging remote and hybrid teams. Consider it your cheat sheet for raising energy levels during virtual training sessions. Keep this list on your desktop and adapt the ideas to include what’s most relevant to your employees.

Virtual engagement cheat sheet_Go1.pdf

For when you’re stumped on engaging remote and hybrid teams, keep this list on hand.

This guide provides tips for effective remote and hybrid training programs that utilize digital platforms, offer multiple engagement methods, and prioritize content accessibility for employees.

Remote training best practices guide_Go1.pdf

Tips and best practices for effective remote and hybrid training programs

Welcome to the Go1 blog. Helping you to achieve your L&D goals through the latest learning and development insights, trends, and technology.

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