Category: Hybrid/Remote

Check out part one of this series for even more employee loyalty ideas to boost buy-in across your remote and hybrid workers!

Prioritize their well-being

Employees want work-life balance. That has to come from the example set by their employer and the company’s expectations of them. 

If the company expects people to reply to emails outside of working hours, or work to tight deadlines, an employee is far more likely to have a worse work-life balance and burn out faster. This is an important factor when considering employee loyalty ideas.

When you prioritize employees’ well-being, they get more time to recharge their batteries. 

To do this, you both need to draw clear boundaries around working hours and personal hours. It’s also important to provide employees with time back when they work overtime.

It’s not just about that, though.

Provide support

How can you support your employees? 

Could you offer subsidized childcare, pension plans, or healthcare?

In some countries these things are legal requirements, but in others they’re not. 

So it’s worth considering what’s a legal requirement in your country and what, morally, feels like the right way to support your employees.

It’s even more important to implement these types of employee loyalty ideas during challenging and stressful times.

Take away unnecessary uncertainty

When we live in uncertain times it causes stress and anxiety. This affects our moods and our ability to concentrate and deliver our best work. It can also seriously affect the success of any employee loyalty ideas.

We all remember how stressful Covid-19 was, and the impact it had. Many of us were left feeling more fatigued than usual despite doing less. 

This was because it was the most uncertain time many of us have ever lived through. We had no idea what was going to happen from one day to the next. This extra worry subconsciously left us drained.

When employees work in unpredictable, uncertain environments, it recreates this stress. 

The longer their situation is uncertain for, the more likely it is that that stress will mutate. It can show up as depression, anxiety, or even chronic pain like migraines or fibromyalgia.

So, how can you support your employees and remove unnecessary uncertainties? 

Is it through better communication, even when times are tough? 

Is it taking their opinions into account? 

Getting more support yourself from someone else within the organization?

Practice what you preach

It’s all very well and good telling employees to do something, but if you’re not willing to do that thing yourself, asking them can come across as hypocritical. It can also be really frustrating for employees. Why should they have to do something that you’re not willing to do?

For example, if you want to grow your employer brand on social media, the best way to do it is through your employees sharing what life is like at your business from their own profiles. 

But if they don’t see their leaders posting, they’re going to feel more apprehensive about doing so. Leading by example is one of the more straightforward employee loyalty ideas you can incorporate.

Strong leadership

If you show that you care about your business and colleagues, employees are much more likely to follow your lead. They’ll mirror your loyalty.

But that starts with you modeling the types of behavior you want to see and being a strong leader. 

It means talking to your team even when things are hard. And it means being able to make the tough decisions.

Check in regularly

The only way you’re going to know what’s really going on with your employees is by checking in regularly. Knowing what’s going on should be the foundation of your employee loyalty ideas.

In large businesses it’s impossible for senior leadership to speak to everyone. 

But you should make an effort to connect periodically with employees from all levels. That way, they don’t feel like you’re just a figurehead and decisions ripple down from you to them. They should feel able to communicate with you.

Team leaders and managers should also have regular catch-ups with their direct reports. This allows them to keep team members informed of what’s happening. Plus, it helps solve any problems before they cause more significant issues.

It also ensures that if employees have personal problems, don’t get along with their colleagues, or clients are causing a headache, they’re not dealing with those issues alone.

Encourage learning and development

Encouraging employees to grow their skills inside and outside of the business has huge benefits for everyone. 

It’s great for our brains to learn new things. That could be a new language, a new skill we can use at work, or a different form of exercise. These new skills create new connections in our brains, which keeps them healthy and can improve our moods.

Businesses, meanwhile, get the benefits of employees’ improved health and mood, leading to greater productivity. But those aren’t the only ways businesses can benefit from employee learning and development.

When employees continue to upskill throughout their careers, it helps them stay competitive. And, as a result, so does your business. It’s one of the employee loyalty ideas that’s a true win-win.

That way, employees have the latest industry knowledge—and they may even have other peripheral skills that competitors’ employees don’t have—that can boost productivity, find new cost-saving measures, and discover more creative ways to solve problems. 

The more knowledge and experience they can bring to the table, the greater the benefits to you.

Conclusion

Remote and hybrid workers need to know that you trust them. That means investing in everything from their office equipment to their well-being to their personal brand to their learning and development. 

Sure, there’s the possibility that they’ll leave after you’ve spent all that money. 

But if they leave on positive terms, they’re far more likely to come back. And they’re going to boost your employer brand either way by speaking so highly of you. This can help you tap into a new talent pool, attracting more great employees. In this way, your employee loyalty ideas can lead to an even more loyal workforce over the long-term.

No employee will stick around forever. But if you can foster a sense of loyalty, it will boost not only your employer brand, but your customer brand, too. And that can only lead to positive things for your business.

Ready to get started on implementing some of these employee loyalty ideas? Why not check out some tools that can make things easier?

Workrowd’s user-friendly platform gives employees one-stop shopping for everything that makes them love their employer. You can centralize events, groups, programs, information, and more, all in the same place where you collect employee feedback. It’s a no-brainer, and a great way to get quickly up-to-speed on using these employee loyalty ideas.

If this sounds interesting for your organization, visit us online to learn more or send us a quick note at hello@workrowd.com.

Employee loyalty is a big deal. Loyal employees can be up to 12% more productive, which could make a huge difference to your business’s bottom line.

They’re also up to 87% less likely to leave, leading to all sorts of financial savings. This includes during the hiring process, training, and onboarding. Which then gives you more money to invest in other areas of the business. For instance, upskilling existing employees to increase their industry knowledge and help you stay ahead of the curve.

However, 95% of employees are open to a new job in the next year. So if you’re not looking to boost employee loyalty, your people are far more likely to leave when an opportunity comes knocking.

Replacing an employee costs around double their annual salary, equalling somewhere between $25,000 and $100,000. That’s a lot of money to lose because your company culture needs work.

So, how do you boost employee loyalty? Especially when employees work remotely some or all of the time?

Ask them what they want

What you have in mind isn’t always what your employees want or need from you. This is particularly hard to gauge if your team is remote. You can’t see anyone’s body language (or not properly on video) to tell if they’re really saying what they mean or just telling you what you want to hear. 

But you can ask in a survey! That way, you can get feedback on your hiring process, onboarding process, employee reviews, workplace practices, and offboarding practices. The possibilities are endless.

Listen to their opinions

The further down an employee is in the food chain, the less of a say they get in decisions. This can make them feel unvalued and expendable.

Whether an employee is a cleaner or team leader or any role in between, they should be able to voice their opinions about what’s happening within the business. 

Sending a survey shouldn’t just be something you feel obligated to do. Instead, you should listen to people’s feedback and take action when it’s appropriate. While you can’t solve every problem, if multiple team members have issues with the same thing, that should be a red flag that requires immediate action.

Likewise, if there’s something positive that many employees highlight when you speak to them, you should lean in to that. And include a mention to it in your employee branding materials and/or job descriptions when hiring for a role. It could be a key driver of employee loyalty!

Create a sense of community

If employees feel like they belong, they’re going to be happier in their roles and therefore more likely to stay.

Employee groups are a great way to build a sense of community. Employees can connect with colleagues from other parts of the organization who share their interests, goals, and/or backgrounds.

They don’t have to be complicated to manage, either. With Workrowd, you can get more out of your employee groups and even track their success in real-time.

Offer to help employees set up their offices

Helping employees get the right equipment for their home office allows them to feel more comfortable working from home. That way, they’ll be happier and can get more done. It’s a pretty straightforward way to boost employee loyalty. 

Simple things like the right chair, mouse, or keyboard can make a huge difference to our mood and productivity. 

I used to work in a really uncomfortable chair. Because I was uncomfortable, it was hard for me to concentrate. When I switched jobs and worked from a better chair/desk setup, my back pain went away. Meaning I wasn’t thinking about being in pain and could instead get more work done.

Reward them

A little recognition can go a long way. Sometimes, all it takes is a quick ‘thank you’ for an employee to feel appreciated and like they belong. It can increase employee loyalty and make them want to stay.

Of course, you can take things further and consider a gift of some sort. It could be an onboarding package with some branded merchandise, or a sweet treat at the end of a project. 

You can even go so far as to personalize employee rewards by paying attention to things like their interests and favorite brands.

Help them grow their brand

One way you can really show employees you care about them is by helping them grow their personal brands. 

Not every employee will be interested in doing this, but it’s something that can make a huge difference to their confidence levels, their network, their career opportunities, and how they feel about you as an employer. 

Of course, it does mean that they could get headhunted because of the strength of the personal brand that you helped them create. 

But if they’re truly happy in their role and working for your business, they’ll say no to that new opportunity because they won’t want to leave. Enabling team members to grow within your organization is key to increasing employee loyalty.

Show trust

How do you show your employees that you trust them? 

Is it by allowing them to post about work on social media? 

Is it by prioritizing how much work they get done over how many hours they spend sitting at their desk with Slack open?

The more employees feel like you trust them, the more you’ll get out of them. And, the more you’ll see employee loyalty increase.

If employees constantly feel uncomfortable or like you don’t trust them to do their jobs, the quality of their work, their confidence levels, and their productivity levels, will suffer.

Conclusion

Employee loyalty can play a key role in your talent acquisition and retention levels. The tips above were a start, but these aren’t the only ways to increase employee loyalty.

Stay tuned for part two, where we share more ways to boost employee loyalty among your remote and hybrid workers!

In the meantime, if you want an easier way to increase employee loyalty and watch your numbers rise in real-time, Workrowd can help.

Our one-stop shop for engagement and inclusion makes it easy to get employees deeply involved at your organization from day one, and then track progress over time.

Sound useful? Our happy customers certainly think so! Visit us online to learn more, or email us at hello@workrowd.com to schedule some time to connect.

63% of high-revenue growth companies utilize a hybrid work model. 69% of companies with negative or no growth, meanwhile, prefer employees fully onsite or fully remote.

The majority of employees—98%, in fact—want to work remotely at least some of the time. Over half of them find it harder to connect with their coworkers when they’re remote, though.

So it’s no wonder that 68% of US workers feel that a hybrid work model is the perfect compromise.

While this has the potential for huge business rewards and boosts to employee mental health, it also comes with unique challenges.

So how do you manage a hybrid work model? Let’s take a look at how to get the most from your hybrid workers:

Have a plan and set guidelines

Employees need to know what you expect from them. That starts with setting clear guidelines around things like working patterns, team tools, and company norms.

Do you expect them to be in the office for set hours each week?

Do you not mind how many hours they work, so long as they get the job done?

The clearer you communicate your expectations of employees, the happier—and more engaged—employees will be. And, the more your hybrid work model will help with employee retention and attraction.

Coordinate when everyone is in the office

It can help to have a set day when everyone from a particular team—or within the company—visits the office. This ensures everyone can organize meetings or social engagements around the day they plan to be there. It can also help with things like desk allocation.

Alternatively, get employees to coordinate with their colleagues so that if they do want to meet up in person, they can.

Ask employees what they want

The type of hybrid work model that works for one business may not work for another. That’s part of why it’s important to ask employees what they want. There are so many different ways to do it.

What kind of hybrid work model would be best for them? How many days per week or month do they want to come in?

Do they want a flexible arrangement?

The more information you can get from them, the more informed your decisions will be. And the happier employees will be with the outcome.

Make the office inviting

Offices can be dull, dreary, uninspiring, and uncomfortable places to work. You’ll get far more out of employees if they want to be there.

No one wants to be cramped in a cubicle or stuck in an office that was last redecorated in 1983.

So how can you show off your brand in your office? How can you make it inviting to employees and guests?

Could you provide ergonomic furniture? A more inviting color scheme (that reflects your brand’s personality)?

And how you can encourage collaboration within your meeting spaces? Flipcharts? Interactive whiteboards? Different seating layouts?

Don’t forget to factor in somewhere employees can go for quiet time, too. Offices can be noisy environments. This can be distracting and/or overwhelming for employees, especially if they spend more time in the office than not. And this can lead to a reduction in productivity if you don’t take this into account.

Employees need somewhere they can go to focus on their work, free from distractions from colleagues. Whether this is in the form of bookable meeting rooms, booths, or a coffee area, is up to you.

Making the office inviting is about so much more than just adding a pool table. In order for the hybrid work model to work for you, you need a positive and engaging office environment.

Create systems

The more specific, easy-to-use systems you have in place, the easier it makes it for you—and employees—to manage your hybrid work model.

How will you organize desk allocation? Will you have a hotdesking system? What booking software will you use?

What about meeting room management?

How can employees find out if their colleagues are in the office?

One thing that can make a huge difference is to…

Use the right tools

Technology is key to a hybrid work model. It can help with project management, track who’s in the office, manage desk allocations, facilitate remote computer maintenance, and so much more.

It’s also important for communication. If employees aren’t in the office every day, being able to hop on a video call or drop someone a message means that projects don’t have to come to a halt just because someone isn’t physically present.

If you already have remote workers who can’t commute into the office, project management software and remote communication tools ensure that everyone stays on the same page regardless of where they’re working from.

Some software options include:

• Project management 
• Workplace analytics
• Remote maintenance
• Video conferencing
• Instant messaging
• Screenshot recording

Adapt based on the findings of your software

Workplace analytics software enables you to see how often people come into the office, what tools they use, etc. It allows you to manage resources based on how many people work in person, and monitor how people use the space.

This information means you can work out exactly how much space you need, so the office doesn’t feel too big and empty or too small and cramped. So then you can work out if you still need that huge office space, or if you can reduce costs and reinvest the money elsewhere.

Workplace analytics software empowers you to take a data-driven approach to your return to office, so that you get the most from the space and your employees.

Remember: it’s not one-size-fits-all

28.2% of employees currently utilize a hybrid work model. As more businesses want employees back in the office, and employees crave human connection, hybrid working could be the perfect arrangement.

But what works for one company may not work for another. After all, every person, every business, and every industry works differently. This unique combination of factors means that you have to keep communication open to find out what’s working and not working for your employees.

If you’re looking for an easier way to keep employees connected and thriving under your hybrid work model, Workrowd’s all-in-one suite of tools can help. With all your employee groups, programs, events, and resources under one roof, team members always know where to go to get the information they need.

Whether your people work from home, the office, or somewhere else, Workrowd keeps everyone aligned. And with real-time analytics, you always know what’s giving you the most bang for your buck.

Ready to make the hybrid work model work for you? Visit us online to learn more, or send us a note at hello@workrowd.com.

Ever since the pandemic pushed entire organizations into full-time remote work, workplace loneliness has been on the rise. Loneliness is an epidemic, affecting two-thirds of US adults, up from just over half in 2018. 

Loneliness is defined as a lack of social support, negative feelings about personal relationships, lacking balance (such as from working too much), and a decline in physical and mental health.

Some studies have found that loneliness can even mean we suffer from more health issues and don’t live as long.

Since we spend so much time working, it’s important that businesses address this issue. They may be unintentionally exacerbating feelings of loneliness among their employees. And it’s most definitely an issue that affects businesses, too—lonelier employees are less productive and more likely to leave.

Combatting workplace loneliness when you see people in person regularly is one thing, but what if employees work completely remotely? Is there anything you can do to make sure they don’t feel so isolated? Read on to find out.

Check-ins

Regular check-ins give employees the opportunity to talk about things that are on their minds. 

So long as the catch-ups are at a frequency the employee is comfortable with, they make them feel less alone, too. 

If the check-ins happen more often than someone is expecting, it can make them feel lonelier and less understood. It’s therefore important that you understand their needs and set up a regular schedule to support them. 

Communication and organization are key to making someone feel like you’re on their side. This helps fend off workplace loneliness.

Socializing opportunities

Whether it’s in-person get togethers or virtual chats, offering your employees opportunities to socialize with their colleagues helps them to feel like part of the team. It’s also a fun way for new team members to meet their colleagues. Building connections early on is important for countering workplace loneliness.

Employee resource groups

ERGs are a great way for employees to meet colleagues, grow their network, and expand their skill set. These things are all important for making someone feel like they’re a part of the team and working on their personal lives/skills.

Open discussions about mental health

At an old job of mine, an employee was on leave due to stress. Almost everyone from every department knew this and made fun of said employee for it. 

This is an awful way to discuss mental health. Not only for that person, but for other employees who may be going through something similar.

Talking about mental health is challenging. While society has made some progress in recent years, in some areas there’s still more stigma than support.

When leaders have open discussions about their mental health, it becomes easier for employees to open up, too. This changes the narrative in the workplace, and maybe even in employees’ personal lives, too. It can make them kinder to themselves and the people around them, all because one person set an example.

Plus, by ensuring employees don’t feel isolated by their struggles, you can reduce the risk of workplace loneliness.

Connect employees who are nearby

Sometimes you may have a handful of employees who live near each other, or someone who’s just moved to a new area and doesn’t know anyone. 

Why not give them the opportunity to meet up and work together, or just catch up over coffee? 

This can help them get to know people from their own or other teams. It will improve collaboration and idea generation, as well as make them feel more like they belong in the workplace.

Be inclusive with your approach and language

If you use language that’s ableist, racist, sexist, transphobic, or ‘others’ someone in any way, it can make those people feel isolated.

If you’re not sure what word or phrase to use, ask your employees what they prefer. You could run a poll or survey, or ask individuals you know who share that identity.

The most important thing is that you approach your language usage with an open mind, and as a growth opportunity. Language grows and changes all the time. It always has, and it always will.

Evolving language usage isn’t about preventing freedom of speech. It’s about making other people feel like they belong, too.

Make sure everyone can communicate how they’re comfortable

Some people love quick videos; others prefer an email. It’s important that everyone communicates in a way that they’re comfortable with, not in a way that’s forced on them.

For some, recording a video is akin to being on stage performing standup comedy. You don’t want to make those people feel less included, or totally uncomfortable, by forcing them to do what they feel unable to do. Guide them, set examples, but remember that everyone is different.

Just because you love videos, that doesn’t mean it should be the default for everyone. Some employees may never process information shared over audio or video as well as a written email. 

Likewise, there may be some that prefer audio or video because they can process it quicker. 

There’s no harm in accommodating different communication styles so that you can get the best out of everyone and combat workplace loneliness.

Send presents

If someone has completed a big project, or it’s their birthday, consider sending them a gift to thank them for all their hard work and show them you’re thinking of them. 

You could send them their favorite brand of chocolate, a book they’ve been wanting to read, or a gift voucher for a day out somewhere. It doesn’t have to be anything expensive. What matters is that it’s a gesture to prove to them that you care about them and they’re not alone.

Give them a purpose

When we have a purpose in life, we’re happier and healthier. Why should work be any different? Someone’s purpose doesn’t have to be tied to their job, of course, but there’s no reason it can’t be, either.

To ensure people feel like they’re making a difference, think about how you explain what they’re doing and how it ties into the business’s bigger picture. Quite often, we’re not given this information. We end up feeling like we’re operating in a silo, not really making a difference to the business’s wider objectives.

All great businesses are big on teamwork and cooperation, though. So, explaining to employees what you need from them in relation to business goals and their internal motivations can give them a greater sense of purpose.

Are they motivated to help people? To grow their skills? To design new technologies? Something else? Everyone has something that drives them. You just need to find a way to tap into that to ensure they feel seen and don’t fall prey to workplace loneliness.

Conclusion 

Loneliness is an epidemic that’s damaging to our long- and short-term health. Businesses can help to improve their remote employees’ health by taking small steps to support them and making sure they feel like part of the team.

If you want to protect your employees from workplace loneliness, giving them an easy way to build connections from day one is a must. Workrowd puts all your employee groups, programs, and events, just a click away, ensuring everyone feels welcome. With real-time analytics, you can see what’s actually making a difference for team members and double down on your most effective programming.

If you’d like to learn more and see how Workrowd can help your people find their people, no matter where or when they work, send us a note at hello@workrowd.com.

Engaging remote employees requires a different mindset than engaging office-based employees. 

When someone is fully remote by choice, they may want different things from their working life than people who were forced into remote work by the pandemic.

It’s therefore important that businesses find helpful, creative, and effective ways of engaging remote employees, to ensure that they can do their jobs to the best of their abilities.

Do trust them

For any remote employee to work successfully, they need to feel trusted. If they feel like you’re constantly haranguing them, or you’re trying to micromanage their workload, it’s going to cause them to disconnect and become less productive and communicative. It will have the opposite effect that you’d hoped for.

If someone isn’t working as effectively as you’d like, or you’ve noticed a change in them, ask them what’s wrong. It may be that they’re having personal issues that are impacting their ability to work, but they don’t feel able to talk about it.

Don’t treat them like they’re in an office

Working remotely isn’t even close to being the same as working in an office. It changes everything from someone’s daily routine, to the noises around them, to their concentration levels. You therefore can’t take the same approach when engaging remote employees.

For instance, if you’re organizing a meeting, you need to be aware of video call fatigue. It’s a lot harder to stay engaged for hours when you’re staring at a camera and have nothing else to look at. Compare this to being in a meeting room where there are people, a whiteboard, a window, door, table, laptop, etc. This inevitably changes the experience of the meeting. 

You want to keep sessions short and avoid too many unnecessary tangents. This is especially true for employees who have to attend a lot of meetings.

Do communicate

If someone walked up to your desk in person, you wouldn’t listen to what they had to say then go back to work without responding. Make sure you don’t do that in a remote environment, either. If someone messages you with a question, it’s always best to respond when you can, especially if they need your help with something.

Communication is a key part of having a trusting workplace. Employees need to know what’s going on in the business, just as much as they would in an office-based role. 

Make sure you listen to remote employees’ views, even if it doesn’t change the outcome. Taking the time to do this will make them feel valued. It may even win their buy-in without you having to do anything extra.

Do offer communication options

There are more ways to communicate than ever, but it’s important to remember that how you communicate can and does make a difference to someone’s ability to do their job. Some people prefer voice calls over messages, others like to read things, some are fine with video. 

As well as personal preference, some people process information better or differently depending on how it’s delivered. For example, in most cases, I prefer to read information over digesting it in video format. When reading, I can process it at my own pace, not based around how fast someone speaks.

Don’t micromanage

I mentioned this in the first point, but I want to circle back to it because it’s one of the worst things you can do. By all means, track what employees are doing in a Kanban board, to-do list, or other tracking method that works for you. Set deadlines and encourage employees to stick to them.

But don’t dictate how they spend every working moment. It’s not up to you to prioritize someone’s tasks. Micromanaging is almost never your best bet, but it’s especially problematic when it comes to engaging remote employees.

Don’t exclude them from events

Just because someone works remotely, that doesn’t mean they wouldn’t still enjoy some face-time occasionally. 

This may not be for everyone, but there are plenty of ways to adapt things like the holiday party to suit everyone. Whether that’s by having parties across several locations if you’re a global company, or hosting online events like quizzes, a magician, or games, there are lots of ways of engaging remote employees.

Do give them the right equipment

For someone to work efficiently, they need the right equipment. There’s no point expecting someone to program if they have a laptop from 2005. They need the latest tech that enables them to do things more efficiently.

Other things, like monitors, desks, and chairs can make a huge difference to someone’s ability to do their job, too. Are they sitting too close to their monitor? Can their feet touch the ground in their chair? Is their keyboard or mouse hurting them when they use it? These are small things that can dramatically influence everything from someone’s concentration to their pain levels.

When it comes to software, sometimes free or open source products are all you need to do a job effectively. And sometimes, trying to save a few dollars overcomplicates the job and means it takes twice as long. Be mindful of this and listen to employees’ frustrations if they’re struggling with something.

Don’t expect them to come into the office last minute

If you still have an office and expect employees to visit on occasion, make sure this is clear in the job description before they start. Hybrid working and remote working are very different things and require different working styles for success.

Also remember that if you want remote employees to visit last minute, they may need time to arrange things like child or pet care. 

Always respect their time and give them plenty of notice before asking them to come into the office. Respect is fundamental to engaging remote employees, or any employees, for that matter.

Do make support paths clear

Tech is a huge part of a remote role, but sometimes things go wrong. Employees need to know who they can contact for IT issues since they don’t have an onsite IT team like they would when working in an office.

Don’t expect them to communicate if you don’t

Like it or not, employees will follow your example. So, if you’re not communicating with them, it’s unlikely that they’re going to communicate with you. 

Communication is a two-way street that requires effort and commitment from all parties involved.

Conclusion 

Engaging remote workers is a new thing for many businesses to have to do. That doesn’t mean it has to be complicated or challenging, though. Sometimes it’s really about common sense and considering how you’d like to be treated, what would make your life easier, and remembering that everyone requires different things. Being able to meet this diversity of needs is one of the strengths of remote working.

Another way of meeting diverse needs and engaging remote employees is by bringing all of your employee groups, programs, and events together in one place on Workrowd. Remote, hybrid, and in-office employees alike will be able to quickly see all of the great employee experience initiatives you offer and get involved, no matter where or when they work.

What’s more, you’ll be able to easily track how your programming is impacting employee engagement. Drop us a note at hello@workrowd.com to learn more, or visit our site. We’d love to explore ways to support you in engaging remote employees.

Surveys show that 30% of new hires leave their jobs within the first six months. Providing a great new hire experience has only become more difficult now that many companies are onboarding remote employees. 

When team members leave shortly after starting, it’s stressful. It costs you money, and it means you have to repeat the hiring process when you’ve only just finished it.

On the flip side, the Brandon Hall Group found that a strong onboarding process can increase employee retention by 82%. Neither of these stats are numbers that should be ignored.

Many employees leave for one of two reasons: the company mis-sold itself, or their onboarding was terrible.

These two things can even be linked. A poor onboarding process can be a sign that a company that claimed to be forward-thinking and employee-first, really couldn’t care less about those things.

Onboarding remote employees can add an extra layer of complexity. This is especially true for older, larger, or more established companies. It requires a cultural shift, seeing technology as a friend, not the enemy.

That shift isn’t easy, but it’s crucial to attracting—and retaining—the best talent in your industry. As more and more people want to work remotely, you have to adapt to stay competitive.

Once you’ve got an effective onboarding process set up, employees will be happy to rave about you. They’ll spread the word that you’re a great employer that supports them to thrive, regardless of where they work from.

How do you get to that point, though? Especially when you’re doing it digitally?

Here are some best practices for onboarding remote employees in a way that ensures they feel included:

Make it engaging

You know what’s boring? Sitting on Zoom calls all day, listening to someone talk at you about their role, your role, or the business.

Nobody wants to hear you talk at them for their first week—or longer—at the company.

Sure, there are things they’ll need to know. But how can you deliver them in any easy-to-digest, engaging, and scalable way?

One option is to record a short video. This means you won’t need to repeat yourself over and over on multiple calls. It also means employees can listen in their own time, at their own pace, whether that’s 0.5x or 2x speed.

Then, once they’ve tuned in, you can schedule a call with them so that they can ask you any questions. 

That way, they know you’re open to questions, but you’re not just showing a slideshow that they have to pay attention to when they’ve already sat through six other calls that day. Using different formats when onboarding remote employees can help you meet the needs of diverse groups of new hires.

Encourage them to ask questions

Some companies really dislike it when employees ask questions. That, or they judge them for it.

This creates a fear of judgement, can trigger those who come from troubled backgrounds, and is not conducive to a productive and healthy working environment.

When employees feel able to ask questions—any questions, even seemingly stupid ones—they’ll grow and settle into their roles much faster. They’ll also feel more comfortable suggesting out-of-the-box ideas that are different from how you usually do things because they know their coworkers won’t judge them.

And when it comes to asking questions, they won’t feel the need to waste an hour researching something alone. They’ll be able to get a faster answer without worrying about looking stupid in front of their colleagues.

Have regular check-ins

Regular check-ins show employees they’re valued, even with your busy schedule. The higher up you are, the more important it is to at least check in and engage with new recruits. This could be via group chat, a social media post, an email, or even a quick video. 

Otherwise, you start to feel like a mythical god that nobody can touch. 

When you really let new hires talk to you and ask questions, and you ask them how they’re doing, too, it shows them that you really do care about them and their progression within the company. You’re doing your best to help them settle in.

It’s also important for their line manager to check in with them regularly. This should be one of the first people they go to when they have any questions. The earlier that open relationship is established, the better. Open and frequent communication is crucial when onboarding remote employees.

Create a schedule

When employees receive an itinerary of what to expect during their first days/weeks, it makes the business look organized. It also shows that they respect employees’ time. 

This schedule should be designed in a logical order, factoring in time for breaks and further reading. It should also allow for processing time in between each topic, and starting to help with the team’s workload.

Having a schedule like this ensures that if someone needs background or foundational knowledge before they learn about another area, they have it in advance and they’re not missing key details to help with their understanding. 

Don’t bombard them 

There’s bound to be a lot for them to learn, but be careful not to scare them off by throwing everything their way at once. 

Everyone learns at a different pace. You may need to adapt some things for different learning styles, or answer more questions from some employees than others.

Be patient with them, and show them some compassion. That was you once, too.

Make them feel like a part of the team 

There are lots of ways you can make someone feel like a bigger part of the team. Could you organize a call with them before they join, to welcome them to the team and get to know them? Could you send them a goody bag of branded merchandise?

When they join, could you post on LinkedIn, tagging your new team member? Have a quick call when they first start, before they do anything else, saying hello, answering any immediate questions, and officially welcoming them?

All these small things will add up to make them feel included. As is true throughout the employee experience, building belonging is important when onboarding remote employees.

Conclusion 

While onboarding remote employees can be more challenging than doing so in person, that doesn’t make it impossible. 

It’s all about supporting them in the same way you already support existing remote employees. 

Remaining accessible, and valuing their time and energy, will show them that you’re not an employer that reluctantly allows employees to work from home. You both encourage and support it, finding the best ways to make their working lives easier from their home offices.

You understand the best practices for remote work and that’s the direction the business will continue to grow in.

An important part of onboarding remote employees is making sure they get looped quickly into company culture via your groups, programs, and events. Rather than having them dig through endless chat channels or try to get added to mailing lists they don’t know exist, connect them from day one via Workrowd.

Our one-stop shop ensures that every team member can easily get involved and personalize their experience no matter where or when they work. Drop us a note at hello@workrowd.com to learn more.

I was listening to a podcast recently, and the host mentioned how hard it is to scale company culture remotely. That’s why a lot of businesses want employees back in the office; they don’t believe it’s possible to successfully build a remote work culture. 

And I get it. Because it is hard to scale culture remotely and get people to truly believe what you’re saying.

However, it is possible. Otherwise, people wouldn’t rally around, and in, online communities, whether that’s the indie publishing community, dog nutrition communities, self-improvement, or something else. 

Each of these communities has their own unique culture and atmosphere based on the beliefs and attitudes of the people who run them.

And if those communities can scale their cultures, there’s hope for your business, too. 

Here are some tips to help you build and scale a remote work culture.

Make it clear what you stand for

The earlier you can define what you stand for, the easier it is for you to find and attract people who buy into your mission, beliefs, and goals. The more clearly you can communicate this, the more likely people will be to want to be a part of it, and the easier it will be to scale.

Sometimes what you stand for is a natural part of your business. Perhaps you want to disrupt a particular industry, or offer a new form of help for a group of people. Other times, you have a product or service, but the rest is kind of murky.

It can help to sit down and think about the patterns in your life and your business. What drew you to this industry and organization? Why are you compelled to solve the problems that you do? Starting there, and really getting to the root of it, can push you to find what you’re looking for. This will give you a strong basis for building your remote work culture.

Write things down

Having documents explaining how situations should be handled will make your life easier long term. 

Say, for example, an employee gets pregnant. If you don’t have a policy on maternity leave, you now have to scramble to create one. 

But if you already have one, everyone knows what to expect, maybe even before they’re hired. 

This will help you attract candidates who are a better fit and prevent panic when a new situation arises. 

While you may think “XYZ will never happen here” you can never be too careful. If a business lasts long enough, you’ll encounter most things at some point.

Set an example

You’re a leader. It’s your job to set an example not just to the outside world, but to your employees, too. 

If you want employees to communicate with each other, it starts with you communicating with them. 

They’ll copy your communication style, which means that if you come across as aloof and disconnected, they’ll feel like they can’t be themselves at work and must approach it with some level of emotional detachment.

On the other hand, if you’re warm and empathetic, employees will mimic that, showing their colleagues, and hopefully themselves, more compassion in the workplace. This will lead to a far more welcoming culture for new employees and mean any employees experiencing hardship will find some of the vital support they need from their colleagues. You set the tone for your company’s remote work culture.

Hold catch-up calls

Regularly catching up with employees is a good way to show you’re not just a faceless owner, CEO, or manager. You really do care about them and what’s going on in their lives. More importantly, you want to know what they think about the company. 

This can help you spot problems early on, and establish an open, communicative remote work culture.

Keep your feet on the ground

There’s nothing worse than someone running a business when their head is floating in the clouds. It’s hard to see and breathe up there, which means you won’t be as productive and you won’t know what’s actually happening on the ground. 

You’ll become detached from your employees. Worse, you’ll have no idea if your remote work culture is actually shaping up to be what you want it to be. (If you’re that far away from things, it probably won’t be.)

Meet up in person (if/when you can)

Many remote businesses have periodic meet ups where everyone from the company can get together. Or, for larger, global, businesses, for those within a certain area or country to get together.

While this isn’t vital for remote workers, it can be a way to reinvigorate disconnected employees, generate new ideas, form new partnerships, and find new ways to move the company forward.

If this isn’t possible, try to find a way to connect remotely instead. 

Maybe you have a couple of hours once a month where employees can quiz you, or where you talk about the future of the business. 

Then, employees can split off into break-out rooms to discuss their thoughts and come up with ideas. These smaller group discussions can be a great way for employees to meet new people and brainstorm new ideas.

Virtual escape rooms, quiz nights, and book clubs are other examples of ways for employees to connect remotely.

Conclusion 

Just because it can be difficult to build and scale a remote work culture, that doesn’t make it impossible. 

For it to work, you need to use some of the very same skills that all successful leaders have: creativity, consistency, and determination. 

It takes time to establish a remote work culture, but it can stick to a company for a very long time. 

Change management is hard. So, the earlier you work on the type of remote work culture you want, the greater the difference you’ll see.

One additional element that can be crucial to scaling your remote work culture is to have the right tools in place. You’ll need to build transparency around employee groups, programs, events, and other happenings across the company. Make sure that everyone is in the loop and can connect with each other, no matter where or when they work.

Workrowd makes this easy with a central location for all employees to see what’s coming up, alongside automated data tracking and analytics. This way, you always know how your efforts are impacting your remote work culture.

Don’t invest time and money into employee initiatives that your team members never hear about. Drop by workrowd.com to learn more or email us at hello@workrowd.com today.

The time of year for office holiday parties is almost here again. These events are often a time for employees to let their hair down and connect on a more social level. But is that really possible with a virtual office holiday party?

Yes; yes it is.

There are plenty of things you can do to celebrate the festive season with a virtual team. Celebrations don’t have to be—and shouldn’t be—limited to teams who can meet up in person!

They also don’t have to be limited to employees. It’s a lot easier—and cheaper—to include employees’ loved ones in virtual team events.

If a lot of your employees have children, see if there’s a way you can include them in the activities at your virtual office holiday party, or put something on that they’d enjoy. This shows that you understand employees have lives outside of their work, and helps to encourage and support them.

Give employees a food/drinks budget

A big part of an in-person holiday party is going out for a meal with colleagues. 

While that can’t be recreated at a virtual office holiday party, one thing you can do is provide employees with a food and/or drinks budget. 

They can use this to treat themselves to a nice meal at home. This way, they don’t need to cook and can enjoy the festivities for the evening.

Conduct a yoga or Pilates class

To prepare employees for the festivities to come, you could hire a yoga or Pilates instructor to hold a virtual class. Both can help employees to wind down after a busy period at work. Starting off this way will ensure they’re better able to enjoy the rest of the activities. 

Yoga and Pilates are also amazing for helping to work through joint stiffness you didn’t even know you had. You never know—you may even inspire a new habit for the new year!

Hold a virtual bake off

The holiday season is a time for baking. So why not share some recipes and see which your employees would like to bake? 

This can be a fun way for employees to learn a new skill and talk to people they may not have engaged with before. They’ll also be creating social media content for you to share. Your social media followers can vote on the winning results.

Do a magic show

One family-friendly activity you could try is to hire a magician to put on a magic show. You’d be surprised at how well these work virtually when done over Zoom or Teams.

Much like in-person magic shows, there’s often an element of audience participation. This can be a great way to get employees and their family members involved.

Tell ghost stories or standup comedy

This one is for the more confident public speakers in the group. Much like a lightning talk or PechaKucha, employees get a set amount of time to tell a spooky story or make everyone laugh. 

It’s a lot of pressure and not for the faint of heart, but a great way for employees to hone their public speaking skills and be entertained in the process!

Find a standup comic

Instead of (or as well as) getting employees to provide the comedy, you could hire an actual standup comic. There are plenty out there who entertain at business events, and many have pivoted to online events, too.

Host a festive movie night

Everyone has their favorite festive film, whether it’s a classic like Home Alone, or a more recent Netflix one like The Holidate. It might even be something less safe for work, like Bad Santa.

Watching a film together can be a great way for people to share their thoughts and bond over what happened in the movie. Plus, they’re a great way to relax!

Test everyone’s general knowledge

You could host a holiday-themed quiz, asking questions on holiday-themed foods, pop culture, and customs from around the world.

Take a class or workshop

Office holiday parties can be a chance to learn or develop new skills, from cocktail making to painting. There’s no reason a virtual office holiday party can’t offer the same benefits!

There are online teachers for just about every skill imaginable. If you can, choose something with a low barrier to entry, like writing. This way, employees need less space and resources to take part.

If you want something that requires equipment, like painting, make sure you provide employees with everything they need for the class if they wish to take part.

Put on an awards night

What better way to show employees you appreciate them than with an awards night? 

You could host awards for serious things, such as best problem solver, and put them alongside more humorous awards, such as best baker.

The combination of serious and humorous awards shows employees that you pay attention to what they do at work, and what they’re interested in outside of work. 

Highlighting employees’ achievements is also a great way to show other team members what kinds of attitudes and approaches are the most effective. In turn, this can encourage them to operate in a similar way going forward. 

Including the more humorous awards also shows that it isn’t a super serious awards night that people need to get anxious or worked up about. It’s designed to be fun and not a competition.

Ask employees what they want (or don’t want)

If you’re unsure about an idea, ask! Employees may already have ideas of what they’d like to do, or have suggestions from previous virtual holiday parties they’ve attended before. 

You may even find they loved past activities you’ve done and want to do them again.

Conclusion 

Office holiday parties boost employee morale, help employees get to know their colleagues, and show employees that you appreciate all their hard work over the last twelve months. 

There’s no reason a virtual version can’t do the same thing. There are plenty of activities you can put on that can have the same benefits to employees’ mindsets and morale.

If you’re looking for an easier way to market, manage, and measure the success of events like a virtual office holiday party, we invite you to visit workrowd.com to see how our suite of tools can help you supercharge your impact.

Our platform makes it easy to keep everyone in the loop. It also includes an evolving library of activity guides, and offers automated surveys to ensure you capture crucial feedback. Drop us a line at hello@workrowd.com to learn more.

Team-building activities can be a challenge to organize during the best of times, but even more so when they have to be virtual team-building activities. How can you organize something that appeals to a diverse group of people with different interests?

But it’s worth taking time to organize them. They’re a great way for colleagues to bond, leading to a happier working environment. This can improve communication between team members, promote new ways of working, and create more productive working environments.

Remote team-building activities are difficult to organize, but there are lots of options available.

Virtual team-building activities are also more inclusive for employees who may not be able to go out during the evening because of caregiving responsibilities. It’s also easier for employees with chronic illnesses, and for remote teams or hybrid teams to connect.

Here are a few virtual team-building activities you could try.

Lightning talks (or PechaKucha)

In a lightning talk, people get around five minutes to talk about something they’re really passionate about. 

PechaKucha takes a similar approach—people have 20 slides on a topic and get 20 seconds to talk about each slide. 

Talking about something they love makes people are less likely to feel nervous than they would in a typical work-related discussion. These talks are therefore a simple way to help someone develop their public speaking skills.

Someone’s chosen topic doesn’t have to be work-related. It could be dog nutrition, novel writing, the environment—whatever makes them happy! It’s an opportunity for employees to find out more about their colleagues and for them to connect through shared interests.

If you’re planning to host lightning or PechaKucha talks, you could also hold a workshop beforehand on public speaking skills. 

Sometimes people want to join in but have no public speaking experience, or are afraid of it (public speaking is a really common fear!), so giving them some tips will boost their confidence and may increase the number of people who feel excited about participating.

Volunteering or fundraising challenges

Volunteering and fundraising allow employees to bond over a passion for a common cause. 

You could offer a regular window during working hours to volunteer, or several hours per month to donate to a good cause.

Fundraising challenges are shorter, but allow employees to work toward a shared goal, such as walking or running a certain distance together.

Both options provide employees with the opportunity to give back to the world, whatever their situation.

It doesn’t always have to be about donating money—donating time to help those who need it can make just as much of a difference, and provide lots of team-building opportunities, too.

Volunteering and fundraising opportunities also show what your company cares about to the outside world. 

Demonstrating the impact you want to have, beyond what your business does, helps employees to feel like a part of something and can attract more job candidates and potential customers.

Hackathons

Hackathons, where participants have a set amount of time to create a solution or product, are another option. 

These events can last any length of time, but they’re usually short. The idea behind them is that the shorter time frame leads to more creativity, innovation, focus, and, of course, teamwork.

Typically, they’re focused around a key challenge the company is currently facing, but they can also be more open-ended than that. There should at least be some sort of theme to bring everyone together. And probably some prizes on offer for the best results, too.

Hackathons are an opportunity for employees to play to their strengths and challenge themselves. Which is the perfect environment to grow as a person and an employee.

Movie nights 

Informal communication is a key way to build employee morale. Movies are one of the ways you can encourage this. They help us connect with others, and the genre(s) we prefer can say a lot about us. 

Horror helps us confront our fears and anxieties in a safe place; romance offers us an escape; true crime helps us subconsciously prepare for something that could happen to us; films we watched as children can give us that nostalgic, warm and fuzzy feeling.

Discussing and dissecting a film is often water cooler chat, but why not organize it so that everyone has seen it at the same time, and they can discuss it at the same time, too? 

You could provide a list of questions to think about at the end, or let the conversation flow once the movie is over.

Quiz night

Quizzes can be a great way for different team members to show off their areas of expertise and work together to answer the most questions.

You could do a standard quiz, go for something different, like a Jeopardy!-style contest, or make up anagrams or puzzles for participants to solve. Or even combine different types of questions so that everyone gets a chance to use their knowledge and skills.

Dividing employees into small groups, outside of the people they normally work with, gives employees the chance to connect with others and get to know them better. It also ensures that employees who have fewer work-based friends don’t feel left out because they weren’t asked to be in a group.

Escape rooms

In-person escape rooms were growing in popularity before the pandemic hit. Now, the same growth is happening to online ones. 

You can do anything from escaping a spaceship to running away from vampires. 

Sometimes they involve things being sent to someone’s house in advance, while in other instances, everything is done via email or video call.

Teams usually range from 4 to 8, so this is better for small departments, or when people are separated into small groups.

Murder mystery

True crime is one of the biggest genres in the world right now. What better way to build problem-solving skills for true crime lovers than investigating a (fictional) crime?

Online murder mysteries can operate in a few ways, from guided calls to independent, web-based tales. 

Book club (work-related)

Establishing a work-related book club encourages an atmosphere of learning, and discussions about that learning. 

It also teaches active reading skills, which can improve employees’ editorial and analytical abilities.

Suggesting nonfiction books related to upcoming business decisions can often be more powerful than a manager dictating how something will happen. It gives employees a greater understanding of the situation and makes them feel more like a part of the decision-making process.

Book club (fiction)

If you’re going to offer a fiction-focused book club, make sure to alternate genres each week so that everyone’s tastes are included. You could even give each member of the group a chance to pick a book. 

If possible, aim for easy reads so that it doesn’t take huge amounts of time or brain power for people to complete the book. This will be more accommodating to people of different reading skills and energy levels. You’re then more likely to get employees to want to take part and chat about what they’ve read.

Conclusion

Being in different locations doesn’t mean employees can’t still build team skills. These are just a few examples of virtual team-building activities you could try with your employees to foster better communication, a more engaged workforce, and happier employees.

If you’re interested in a better way to market, manage, and measure your team-building activities, check out Workrowd. We’ve got a full suite of tools to help you build transparency and connection for every employee, and track the value of your programs over time. Drop us a line at hello@workrowd.com if you’d like to learn more!

After more than a year of mandatory remote working, reopening offices is now an option for many organizations. The good news is that four out of five companies plan to offer employees some degree of flexibility around how frequently they have to be on site. While this is a great decision in terms of employee experience, the downside is that the transition to hybrid workplaces may be even messier than the whirlwind switch to home offices. New legal concerns seem to crop up each day, different teams want different policies, and many of the traditional pillars of culture and engagement are now off the table. Luckily, there’s one approach that any company can take to overcome these obstacles and thrive in the era of hybrid work. By learning how to empower employees, organizations can tackle challenges not just from the top down, but from the bottom up as well, drastically increasing their likelihood of success.

Figuring out how to empower employees may sound daunting, but it can actually be achieved in a handful of very straightforward ways. What’s more, now is the perfect time to transition to a more employee-driven culture, given that you’ll have to establish new cultural norms anyway as team members return to the office in various configurations. A number of your employees may be meeting for the first time, and many will have to re-meet each other after being apart for more than a year. Plus, your entire employee population is changed since the beginning of 2020. We’ve all been through a lot, some more than others, and you cannot expect people to just show up in the office and pick back up as if nothing happened. In other words, resuming ‘business as usual’ isn’t an option no matter how you cut it, so you might as well seize this opportunity to figure out how to empower employees for maximum benefit.

What does it mean to empower employees

The traditional workplace model is not designed to empower employees. In fact, many aspects are designed to actively disempower employees. Consider factories where workers are assigned to do a small task over and over, or are charged with churning out a certain number of products in a certain timeframe in order to retain their jobs. These workplaces are structured to keep employees anxious and isolated so that they won’t protest their treatment or substandard conditions. In part, this is what contributed to the rise of the Labor Movement in the U.S.

While the days of factories full of violations may seem long gone, we have seen similar dynamics exposed in office work as part of the transition to remote working. Recent studies show that at least 20% of companies are using software to monitor employees as they work from home. Even today, many organizations operate in an extremely top-down manner, where employees are not trusted or given autonomy to do their best work. These issues can occur at any level of the organization, from the C-suite on down to line managers, and they create an environment where employees are actively disempowered.

Employee empowerment means equipping every team member with the tools and resources they need to succeed, and having the confidence that they will get their work done in a timely manner and to a high standard. The results speak for themselves. Empowered employees are 67% more likely to put in extra effort on the job. What’s more, 70% of employees rank empowerment as being important to their ability to remain engaged and productive. In fact, highly empowered employees show engagement levels in the 79^th percentile, while disempowered employees fall into the 24^th percentile. Empowerment means setting your employees up to learn, grow, and make a difference at your company. Wouldn’t you rather get the most out of your talent, rather than limiting them while also wasting time and money on making sure they don’t break out of their cubes?

How to empower employees as we navigate the new world of hybrid work

Now that you know why it’s in your company’s best interest to empower your team members rather than micromanage them, it’s time to talk about how to empower employees. What are the actual steps you can take as you look towards reopening offices? Below we’ve listed some of the top strategies for empowering employees and transforming your culture from the inside out:

1. Solicit input early and often. Employees who feel that their voice is heard are 4.6 times more likely to feel empowered to do their best work. If your boss never asked for your input and dismissed any feedback you tried to provide, would you feel like you were able to make a difference in your organization? Soliciting feedback from employees as frequently as possible, and actually taking their suggestions into account is crucial to empowering your workforce. Returning to the workplace presents a key opportunity to ask for employees’ input on what they’re comfortable with, what they would prefer, and how the company can help. Once you’ve made a decision, be sure to also explain why, including how employee feedback may have factored into the process.
2. Offer ample opportunities for growth. If you’re not providing ways for employees to grow and learn, they won’t feel they’re able to reach their full potential with your organization. With the transition to a hybrid workplace, this includes offering trainings on how to stay at your best while your team is distributed and other relevant topics. As you settle in, ensure that your learning opportunities are accessible to all team members, no matter where they work. This way, every employee will feel valued and empowered to utilize and expand upon the full extent of their skills.
3. Empower managers and teach them how to empower others. Managing people is hard. Managing people through a pandemic, then into a whole new world of work is even harder. Make sure your managers have the tools to succeed. This means teaching them how to ensure that things are equitable across their team, especially if some employees are on-site while others remain at home. Have them discuss how team members prefer to receive feedback, both positive and negative, and train them in the best ways of having these crucial conversations. Emphasize that they should be empowering their employees, and mirroring strategies used in their own trainings to spread this dynamic throughout the organization.
4. Create dedicated spaces for serendipitous connections. Employees can’t live up to their full potential if they’re stuck alone in their home offices with no way to interact with colleagues outside of meetings and beyond their own teams. Now that you can no longer rely on passing interactions in the hallway and/or the ability to drop by someone’s desk, you need to make a concerted effort to develop company culture in a space that’s accessible to all employees. This inevitably means going digital, but it has to be in a separate space than where your team members are getting hit with infinite stressors. Create a digital water cooler, and consider orienting it around employee communities so your people can drive key outcomes for you on issues like social impact, innovation, diversity, equity, and inclusion and more at the same time that they’re building key relationships. Empowering your employees to drive culture and engagement from the ground up will pay off in spades across loyalty, productivity, employer branding, and more.
5. Back off. Let your employees do their jobs. Don’t try to set up elaborate monitoring and oversight schemes to make sure they’re doing their work. Establish strong relationships between managers and team members where there’s a clear and regular reporting structure, and ensure lines of communication are open at all times. Then, trust your employees to get the job done. Nothing facilitates disempowerment faster than showing employees you either don’t think they can do their job, or don’t believe that they will without hand-holding. Adopt an ‘innocent until proven guilty’ mentality where you assume employees will deliver until they demonstrate otherwise, and you’ll find that the majority will meet and even exceed your expectations. Those who don’t might not be players you want on your team anyway, so it’s better to find out the easy way than to try to force a fit where none exists.

Most workplaces were intentionally designed to disempower employees, but we’ve got a golden opportunity right now to change the game. Learning how to empower employees and designing your post-pandemic workplace around that ideal can do wonders for your team members, your company culture, and your bottom line. If you’re looking for tools to assist you in this effort, look no further than Workrowd, a dedicated employee empowerment platform. Enable your team members to connect seamlessly across business units, and spin up new events and programs that drive business outcomes. Drop us a line at hello@workrowd.com if you’d like to learn more.