To some extent, the pandemic accelerated existing trends toward more flexible work arrangements that include at least some remote work. With such a major trend happening in an accelerated way, it is more important than ever to keep remote employees as engaged as those who are in your office. Here are a few key concepts for engaging employees working from home.

All teams need a shared understanding of the purpose, the goal of the company, and their team. As a leader you need to transparently describe the success of the project before any work begins; coach them to develop an action plan with due dates to get to the finish line on time and budget. They need to know how their role fits into the larger goals of the organisation.

Email alone just doesn’t cut it anymore. Most office workers get so many emails it is impossible to keep everyone organised and focused on what they need to do to make themselves and their teams successful.

Teams should have regular meetings with a structured agenda and they should be via video. Studies have shown that a very minor part of communication in business is via the words used, the next is the tone and inflection and more than half comes from body language. Video conferences using services like Zoom or Teams allows you to get the whole message across.  

Using the right tools, all of your employees will know the top priorities of the company, the team and the individual. This gets rid of all of the wasted work that comes from teams that aren’t aligned to the company’s goals. Every company is going to have different tools that will work for their industry, type of business and culture. Common tools include:

• The right business software.

• Office equipment like computers, ergonomic furniture.

• Video conferencing access via Zoom or similar for meetings, including larger company wide events. 

• Short messaging where employees can have casual, social interaction with colleagues.

• Remote server access, and more.

Virtual tools can also be complemented by actual tools. For a virtual event for employees, you could send an event box of items to use during the online event ahead of time. Everyone loves to receive a ‘gift’ and the box could include business-related items that supports your events messaging like a branded workbook, but also a personalised item for the employee to keep, like a keep cup. Orange Canvas offers lovingly crafted employee engagement event boxes for all occasions that are cost-effective yet bespoke to your brand.

Ensure you communicate to all your employees that your company culture fully embraces remote employees or those who may need to work from home on occasion. To make sure all team members are treated equally, always invite your remote employees to contribute first. Any time you have a mix of virtual and on-site employees, always let the remote participants go first. It signals to all employees that you value everyone’s input, and that those working remotely (and their contributions) are not in any way forgotten. 

Managers need to make sure they have regular weekly or bi-weekly one-on-one meetings with all of their team members to keep the working relationship healthy, as well as team meetings.

Frequent contact also allows relationships to grow on a personal level, so the manager has a better idea of how to improve employee happiness. Although managing a remote employee involves effort from both the manager and the employee, it needs to be driven by the manager.

At Orange Canvas we are seeing a trend towards enquiries from managers looking to engage workforces through virtual events, and they are looking to send a physical engagement piece to their staff to support these virtual events.

Our event boxes contain carefully selected items branded with your logo, designed to create an amazing experience for the receiver while supporting your event messaging. Each box is perfectly curated to reflect your brand and desired experience, and they can also be individually personalised.