What kinds of things need to be set up to have successful, productive and engaged remote employees?

Engagement and Culture
#1

What kinds of things need to be set up to have successful, productive and engaged remote employees?

1 Like
#2

I worked remote for about 7 years for a large consulting company. For me there were three key things that kept me productive and engaged.

  1. I was able to stay connected relatively easily (I had tools that enabled me to collaborate with team members and clients and meetings were usually scheduled at times that fit my timezone.)
  2. I was doing work I cared about and I could see my impact
  3. I was constantly being challenged and learning new things

For what it is worth, the second and third points here align very closely with common drivers of employee engagement.

1 Like
#3

Having the space for remote employees to have a watercooler space Is also important. Remote employees might feel ‘always on’ because they don’t have a place to have impromptu conversations, along with feelings of isolation.

I’ve seen this work with dedicated remote worker channels on your work communication platform. That way remote workers can speak about anything that they like, whenever they like, helping them have a sense of community.

1 Like
#4

For me, it’s about creating an inclusive culture where non-remote people are aware of remote people, and consider how to make them feel involved in all work interactions.
Having leaders who use the right language to implicitly communicate that all employees, irrespective of location are part of the company. e.g. talk about ‘locations’ and not ‘offices’.
Having tools and practices that allow for people in all locations to join in, e.g. every meeting request contains a link to a video platform by default.
Having budget and people to help remote employees feel included, by funding travel, mailing swag or items to remote locations, employees visiting from other locations making time to do a video call with people not in the office, but in their timezone.
Many office-related fun and activities such as food treats, or International Women’s Day gift bags are not shared with remote people, so remote people can get different treats mailed to them to recognize this, and avoid people feeling left out.

1 Like
#5

Ours is fully distributed team in multiple locations around the globe.

I’d say for productivity and ‘teaminess’ we have weekly manager checkins, trello/wrike/todoist apps that the team updates with their work and projects, we have round of paired talks (inspired by buffer) on various topics - for e.g. we had developed our core values through these paired talks, checking in with each other informally especially after any major org developments, what does feedback mean to each one and what history they have with it… and other similar topics.

We also have a positive feedback, random, food, music, fails, well-being channel on slack which are pretty active.

We get together once a year and have a 3 day retreat where we stay in an airbnb and cook, sing, talk together. :blush:

I’ve been a remote worker for more than 7 years and I’d say being self motivated, being conscious about timezones, culture or even language (we are all united and divided by English since we all speak it differently), being mindful about not slipping into silos which can happen often is so very important.