How to motivate remote teams
The Office for National Statistics have reported that well over a third of workers in the UK, as of May 2022, still work from home or in a hybrid setting. If you are involved in meetings with external providers, you are very likely have have had a meeting with someone’s living room/home office/conservatory (on the sunny days) in the background.
Whilst this change has been brought on by the pandemic and the following lockdowns, many are choosing remote working for their people as a key change in the way their business operates. That could be purely for financial reasons or for the wellbeing of their team members. Or most probably a healthy mix of both.
Remote working is nothing new, but it is now mainstream
Without sounding too pretentious, we were remote working before it was cool! We base our business model on just that as 100% of our team work remotely. And we think it works really well for us.
Remote working isn’t new by any means. But the popularity of remote working has indeed increased over the last few years. Great news as remote working undoubtedly reaps benefits for increased productivity and improved employee morale and wellbeing. But it also poses some challenges with how to motivate your team at a distance.
Creating trust, open communications and the connections necessary for effective remote work relationships requires some thought and planning.
Here are our top tips on how to motivate remotely and always have happy and productive team members, managers and leaders.
Check-in regularly
Stay connected and communicate more than you would in the office. Establish regular check-in calls you make your employees feel included and listened to.
One of the main challenges with remote working teams is the feeling of isolation. So managers need to be proactive with planned communication and open up casual lines of conversation with instant messaging and chat.
Goals are still important
Working remotely especially at home can be very distracting. It’s understandable that many of your team may not have a dedicated work space and in that respect you must build flexibility and support into your expectations and planning.
Understand that your team member may not be able to focus 100% on work. It’s better to set clear expectations and goals and reward achievements and performance over sitting constantly in front of a screen. Have clear expectations then trust your team to get on with the work and achieve them. Above all try to be flexible.
Get personal
A great deal of office life is the regular social contact you have during the day. The ‘water cooler’ moments and casual conversations you might have with work colleagues. That’s tricky to re-create in a remote setting, but hugely important to keep team members connected and motivated.
Schedule in virtual team socials, make it fun, even competitive, and get everyone involved. If some of your team have been forced to work from home they may be really missing social interaction they used to get at work.
Need more help building morale with your remote teams?
We’d love to help! We have multiple team-building modules that can help unlock the values of a high-performing team. We even deliver our courses remotely!
You can view the full programme here, please get in touch for an informal chat, or if you have something specific in mind and we’ll help you pick the right programme.
