The ability to telecommute to work may not be feasible for all industries or workplaces. However, more and more workers are looking for the opportunity. According to Gallup research, 51 percent of employees say that they would leave their current positions for a job that offered flextime. The opportunity to telecommute is catching up, with 43 percent of U.S. workers working remotely at least some of the time. As leaders, it’s important to include these employees in your efforts to create a strong workplace culture.
Strategies for improving your strong workplace culture culture with remote employees
The following strategies can help leaders to improve workplace culture and employee engagement with your remote employees.
Assess your foundation. A strong team starts with a strong foundation. Unless you know exactly where your team members stand, you cannot move forward with building a better culture. Start with a team culture assessment for your business to gain the strategic information that you need to help your team members grow. The first survey allows you to assess where your team members opinions of the quality of trust, interdependence, genuineness, empathy, risk and success in your organization’s behavior. Survey results also offer strategies to improve in the areas that require attention. Along with targeted development strategies and two follow-up surveys to track improvement, leaders are able to work with their team members to refine their workplace culture to create an environment that attracts and retains top talent.
Build trust.
The “T” in TIGERS, trust is one of the first elements that must be present for a workplace culture to be effective. And in workplaces that include remote workers, trust may be even more important. Employee engagement is dependent upon trust. The chance of an employee being engaged is only one in 12 when employees don’t trust organizational leadership. But when trust is present, an employee’s engagement is increased to one in two. Trust is favorably impacted by good communication. Because you won’t always have the opportunity to speak to your remote employees face-to-face, you need to up your efforts for effective communication. Clarify expectations for your remote workers by providing them with the right type and amount of work, as well as clear performance expectations. When employees know what is expected of them, they are better equipped to perform well.
Show compassion.
Leaders must demonstrate compassion to all of their employees. This is especially true for those who are not seen regularly. This is because you can only show your employees that you care if you intentionally take the time to demonstrate it. One way to show that you care is by offering regular and timely praise and recognition. A quick “good job” in passing can go a long way with employees that you see every day. Most remote employees aren’t given that opportunity for recognition. Instead, offer texts, emails or calls to voice your appreciation.
Offer transparency.
All workers want to feel stable in their positions. One way that leaders can accomplish this is by being transparent with their workers. But like all other qualities, transparency is more difficult with remote workers. People who aren’t in the office day in and day out miss out on seeing how things operate. Leaders need to be intentionally transparent with remote workers. They can do so by sharing data on a regular schedule. When remote workers receive data in a predictable timetable, they feel more stable in their positions. This promotes higher engagement in their positions.
Instill hope.
One of the greatest things a leader can do for their workers is instill a sense of hope. Team members perform best and are most engaged when they know their work matters for the future. They want their labor to create a better environment for others, as well as themselves. Leaders can create hope for remote employees by encouraging their personal development. Regularly talking about the organization’s mission and how each employee contributes to its success also matters. When remote employees feel connected to the bigger picture and have hope for the future, they will perform better and be more engaged in the process.
With the number of employees who telecommute regularly or in some capacity creeping close to half of all employees, it’s time for leaders to take note and revamp their strategies for creating a strong workplace culture. To begin improving their current culture climate, leaders need to first assess their foundation. Then applying actionable and measurable strategies to improve workforce behavior in the areas of trust, interdependence, genuineness, empathy, risk and success serves all employees. After assessing and tracking the foundation, leaders can focus on building trust, showing compassion, offering transparency and instilling hope with both their onsite and remote workers to improve the current workplace culture.
Care to dig deeper into building a strong workforce culture with remote workers?
We found the following resources to be helpful:
- How to Build Trust With Remote Employees
- Having Compassion Enhances Remote Workers’ Performance
- Transparency Builds Stability With Remote Workers
- TIGERS Workforce Behavioral Profile
- Hope Is the Cornerstone of Performance for Remote Workers
- TIGERS Micro-Training Solutions
Copyright TIGERS Success Series, Inc.
About TIGERS® Success Series
TIGERS® Success Series takes the guesswork out of workforce development. TIGERS provides a comprehensive, robust system for improving both your work environment and profitability.
We specialize in developing high performance work cultures. Scaled to grow as your organization and leadership performance grows, our proprietary Team Behavior Profile, Management training workshops, and online micro training packages are based on the six principles we have found to be the right mix to make this happen.
The TIGERS 6 Principles are Trust, Interdependence, Genuineness, Empathy, Risk and Success. Born from our many years of business, psychology, and educational group dynamic research, and subsequent four years of independent evaluation, we instill and sustain behaviors that improve work group performance and talent retention for measurable ROI.
For more information or to request a presentation to your group or association, call 1+877-538-2822. To subscribe to our complimentary newsletter, click here.
