With a global pandemic raging on, most of us have started working remotely from the safety and security of our homes. However, the transition from physical work to remote work hasn’t been easy. Remote working has loads of benefits, such as no office distractions, no frustrating commute, no colleagues interrupting your workflow, etc.
However, there are a few things that you need to do in order to help your employees adjust to remote work. If you work remotely, it is no longer easy to keep your personal and professional life separate – you are susceptible to working longer hours and more likely to be stressed.
What are the Difficulties Faced in Remote Work
- Isolation
Remote work sounds enticing but it comes with its fair share of challenges and issues. One of the biggest issues with remote work is isolation. With COVID-19 wrecking havoc in our lives and most of us being under lockdown, the deficit in human interaction is already being felt by all of us.
The camaraderie of working in your office, chatting with your colleagues, etc. is something which we are all missing.
- Issues with Virtual Communication
Want to ask your colleague something? Having an issue with the project that you are currently working on and need some help? We all are used to wandering over someone else’s desk and getting the help that we need.
For most of us, work communication went from face-to-face to over-the-internet overnight. This forced everyone to adopt complex working structures that led to dissonance and confusion. Where should we send the updates? Should we email it to our supervisor or should we start a Slack thread? All these and a million other questions, with no one, to answer them clearly!
Helping Employees Adjust to Remote Work
Even though the management needs to take care of the individual needs of the employees, a couple of things are very important to ensure that all of the employees are on the same page and are facing no difficulties while working from home. It comes under your managerial responsibilities to provide the best workplace environment to your employees.
- Establishing Clear Communication Structure
The ways you communicate with your employees need to be clearly set. Email and Slack updates aren’t enough – you need to supplement them with video conferences regularly. However, don’t go overboard with these but do keep them a part of your workweek so that the employees will be able to chat in real-time and interact with each other regarding any issues.
Make sure that your employees know how to use the virtual communication tools and they are not lagging behind due to lack of knowledge.
- Frequent Check-Ins
The most ideal way of ensuring that your employees are alright is by checking in with them regularly. Don’t be overbearing – just give them a daily call, or set calls throughout the week to ensure that they are working properly and aren’t facing any difficulties. It is very important to ensure that you providing all the workplace rights to your employees while they work remotely.
- Offer encouragement and support
You need to remember that your employees have just gone through a shift – a shift that hasn’t been easy for most of them. Keep in contact with your team and connect with them on an emotional level. Ask them if they are facing any issues and if you can help them in any way, don’t hesitate to provide your services.
However, you have to ensure that you are not crossing any workplace professional boundaries at the same time.
- Ensure Social Interaction
In physical workplaces, employees get to interact with each other due to a multitude of reasons. Even the mere task of getting coffee from the office kitchen will allow you the opportunity to talk to your colleagues. Such opportunities don’t exist when you are working remotely from home and for those of us who are extroverts, this can be crushing.
However, as an employer, it is your obligation to ensure that your employees are virtually socializing. It can something as minute as keeping the last 10 minutes of a meeting to talk about what you are doing to hosting a virtual pizza party where all of you have pizza together and video chat.
With the help of these few tips and tricks, you can ensure that your employees are adjusting to remote work easily.
Happy Working, Folks!
About the Author: Alina Burakova is a life coach and she loves helping people figure out ways out of their problems. She also reviews the best online tutoring, resume, business plan writing and test prep services at EduReviewer and has an avid interest in reading & writing.
