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The Top 9 Ways Leaders can Support Remote Workers

The rapid shift to the concept of remote work has created major new challenges for organizations all around the world. However, research reveals that organizations across the globe are experimenting with creative solutions.

The coronavirus pandemic has forced employees around the world to work from home. As such, the overall magnitude of the shift to the concept of remote work is significant.

Do you need an in-depth inquiry into the current state of remote working? You can go through additional reading here!

While the shift is major and organizations have to face specific challenges, here are some ways in which business leaders can continue supporting the remote workers:

1. Maintaining Frequent and Consistent Communication

As employees are working from home, they might feel disconnected from the organization. It is believed that around 41% of employees stated that effective communication was the key to transitioning to remote work easily.

Therefore, it is imperative to ensure frequent, consistent, and transparent communication within teams to boost remote workers.

2. Treating Team Members as Individuals

Every team member in your organization will approach your work with a specific set of expectations, experiences, and concerns. They bring along their own suggestions to the manner in which they perform projects and connect with others in the team.

As a leader managing remote teams, you should aim at being connected with them at all times by seeking questions and delivering feedback to ensure a perfect balance.

3. Practicing Fair Behavior

Most business leaders have limited views on managing remote players –like checking up on them quite frequently, measuring output versus activity, and much more. The overall notion of fairness should drive you as the leader of the team.

The ultimate key is to train and teach the respective remote team members on the best available practices.

It is imperative for you to be fair in the overall frequency of reach-out, learning about the colleagues in the remote working culture are doing, and understanding what is happening in the work field.

4. Building Loyalty

Transparency and communication are the keys to supporting your remote workforce. As you hold weekly or monthly meetings –especially through video connects, you should include the entire team.

You can also follow up with the respective teams with a personal call for reaching out to specific needs.

You should also connect and be transparent while earning the trust of your workforce. Trust is going to result into loyalty.

5. Being Intentional

To offer the best-ever support for your remote workers, managers are required to keep the workers at the top of their minds while having the intention to ensure that they are included.

Managers understand the challenges that remote workers have to face in comparison to those who are present in the office. Managers are expected to lead the meeting by including team members through phone or video calls.

6. Avoiding the ‘Us’ Vs. ‘Them’ Mentality

Many companies have experience in working with dispersed talent for several years with improved success rates. In the case of remote working, it serves to be a great opportunity to come up with new policies for supporting all workers in the same manner –whether they are working at a single location or spread throughout.

Do not form ‘us’ or ‘them’ groups within team members. You should aim at treating everyone in the manner in which they want to be treated for creating a highly engaged workforce in your organization.

7. Asking Them About Their Feelings

The manner in which people tend to feel often determines how they are behaving. In turn, the manner in which they behave tends to determine the health and results of a majority of relationships.

Most leaders tend to regularly survey the employees on specific emotions –asking them about their feelings.

By analyzing the respective feedback, the team leaders can come up together with a plan for addressing the existing gaps.

8. Showing You Care

Ensure that you are taking care of the overall well-being of the employees. Otherwise, it is common for employees to leave work for some other company that offers improved treatment, terms, and conditions.

You should be committed to connecting as a human being regularly through video calls. This will allow you to obtain honest feedback as well as suggestions about how collaboration can be improved mutually.

Aim at building real relationships with the remote workers.

9. Focusing on Deliverables Instead of Hours

Organizations having remote employees should clearly set expectations by specifying proper remote working guidelines.

For instance, you can decide upon talking once or twice during the day. Instead of focusing on the number of hours worked on a given day, you should measure the productivity of the worker on the basis of quantifiable deliverables.

Conclusion

The concept of remote working is here to stay.

Therefore, it is high time that organizations should adapt to the all-new challenges while promoting the notion of working remotely amongst employees.

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