40 Fresh and Practical Ways to Build Engagement With A Remote Workforce

April 20, 2020 Employee Performance and Coaching

20. Consolidate Your Notes on Remote Employees

Since our interaction with remote staff is often intermittent at best, it’s easy for us as managers to forget the actions and talking points we had during our last discussion. Don’t feel bad – you’ve had 32 meetings between then and now. This reality makes it difficult to monitor status, evaluate performance, and identify recurring roadblocks.

Don’t waste precious time trying to refresh your memory. Your remote employees expect to have a productive conversation with you; rehashing the same things as the last time is counter-productive and demotivating.

Whether you prefer a small notebook dedicated to each employee, a folder stored in your desk drawer, or an electronic file on your computer, establish a system that consolidates your notes, talking points, actions and observations of each employee. Over time, as you build a history of communication with the employee, these notes become an invaluable resource for you when giving formal feedback (See Point #7).

21. Always Send Photos of the White Board

It happens all the time. Your remote employees are dialed into the web meeting for a brain storming session. The rest of your staff is in the conference room with you. Throughout the meeting, you’re writing on the white board for everyone to see… except those just listening from their home office. Nowadays, there are electronic smart boards that can be shown across the web meeting. But, they’re expensive and not every company has them.

While it is difficult to give a verbal play by play of every line on the board for your remote employees, you can at least take a photo of the sketches or illustrations at the end of the meeting and email it out to the virtual participants. Just because they’re not in the room does not mean they don’t want to see the output.

22. Follow Up the Verbal with the Written

In a day full of virtual meetings – while common in today’s business environment – there is a tendency for things to blur together. If listening to the reverberating sound of a speaker phone in a large conference room all day wasn’t bad enough for your remote employees, nine people talking in that room at the same time makes it even harder for him or her to pick up every detail.

You can make your virtual employees’ lives infinitely easier – and less frustrating – by recording and distributing meeting minutes. Summarize the meeting taking points and actions for every discussion.

Whether you prefer to use a formal template or just capture key points in a basic email, distributing the information allows all participants to refer to them later.

More importantly, this practice is extremely helpful to your remote employees who, despite their best efforts, may not have been able to follow the entire conversation on a lengthy conference call.

23. Make a Habit of Introductions

Speaking of conference calls, Andy would often reach out to me after a meeting and ask something like “Who was the person who asked about the schedule?”

Unless you have a dedicated video conference room in your workplace, remote employees are at a disadvantage because they must go off of voices. And, since they may not have met everyone, in-person or otherwise, remote employees may have no idea who’s talking at the other end (which was often the case with Andy).

The last thing you want a virtual employee to say is “Well, there were a bunch of voices. I didn’t really know who was who, so I sort of checked out about 15 minutes into the discussion.”

Make a simple habit of introducing everyone who is in the meeting – both dialed in remotely, as well as physically co-located with you in the conference room. If there’s a new or occasional participant, identify them should they speak up, so the rest of the team knows who’s talking.

24. Create a Mentor / Mentee Relationship

Everyone likes having a mentor. So, make it happen! Partner your remote employees with someone else on your staff, one as a mentor and one as a mentee (doesn’t matter which person takes which role). Doing this has two distinct benefits.

First, this arrangement helps remote staff forge relationships with their colleagues that may not otherwise develop.

Second, camaraderie and lead / understudy relationships among staff takes some of the mentoring and employee development pressure off your hands.

25. Identify Challenges and Remove Roadblocks

Not everyone enjoys or is equally capable of working remote from their team. Every employee has different needs.

Some workers need a strong interpersonal connection and require frequent interaction. Others are fine just taking actions and working in solitude. Regardless, never assume things are well – no news is not necessarily good news!

From time to time, take a moment to ask about any challenges or frustrations your remote employee has. Whether it’s getting appropriate IT support, not having enough time with the teammates, or simply feeling like they are forgotten on occasion, an honest conversation can identify opportunities for you to remove some barriers or improve their work situation in some way. Such a simple question can trigger any number of responses.

26. Publish a Weekly Wins / Losses Summary

The limited contact with colleagues makes it difficult for virtual employees to know what else is going on in your department. They’re working on their project, their assignment and that’s about all they can keep up with.

To combat the distance and separation, send a note to your team on Fridays that recaps some of the highlights and struggles of the week. Standard communication such as this gives all employees a nice close to the week. Further, especially for remote employees, a Wins / Losses summary provides insight into other things the team is doing that they may have no other way of knowing.

Finally, consider mentioning names and giving shout outs as part of the Wins / Losses summary (e.g. “Our newest client sent a note of appreciation for completing the project ahead of schedule. Nice job, Andy.”). This not only lets peers congratulate each for a job well done, but it also illustrates to remote employees that you’re paying attention to them, even if they sit apart from the team.

27. Create a Standard Email Group

Andy was routinely left off emails. Never intentionally, of course, but I always assumed it was one of those things where the sender would mentally walk around the office to ensure he or she captured the names of the relevant people for the email’s distribution. Andy, however, was not in the office!

To ensure no one misses out on information, set up standard email lists for your staff or project team and ensure it includes the remote workers. Do it once and never forget a remote worker again!

28. Desktop Roulette

How often during a web meeting, when a person is sharing his or her screen, have you happened to notice the computer desktop image and asked (or wondered) “That’s an interesting picture, where was that taken?”

Pictures provoke a great deal of curiosity and encourage interaction. So, at the end of each staff meeting, or once per month, play a game of desktop roulette. Pick one employee to share the computer desktop image and tell the story behind it or why they selected it.

As a less intrusive alternative, ask all employees to locate a picture, graphic or cartoon they find interesting, or humorous. Having each person share an image can become a positive end to a monthly team meeting or discussion.

29. Allow Flexibility

In many cases, telling an employee who works remotely (or several time zones away) from the rest of their team that he or she must be in their seat from 9 to 5 is not a work relationship that’s not going to last.

If they work from home, they may have children to attend to at certain points in the day. If they do actually go to a local office in their area, their local facility may require certain work schedules that conflict with yours.

Unless the role directly involves shift work, give remote staff extra latitude in terms of setting their hours. If the work is getting done and deadlines are met, you should have nothing to worry about. The little extra freedom it gives the employee also reassures the employee that you trust they can fulfill their job duties without having to be on the clock on a set schedule.

engagement, meetings, performance reviews