How To Build The Most Productive Remote Workforce Without Sacrificing Employee Happiness?
Although there have been some companies that have been using the work at home strategy, the majority of them still value working at the office. Well, for some reasons, we understand that in some sectors, embarrassing work-at-home could negatively impact the productivity of an office. For instance, casual workers may not use this method as their presence is required for the work to be done successfully.
However, the Covid-19 pandemic has taught us a lot of lessons, and many companies have adopted the work at home strategy. In one way or the other, you'll realise that there are pros and cons of using this method. Still, our main aim is to establish how a company can improve the employees productively when they are working at home without sacrificing their happiness.
How company managers can still have productive work-from-home employees
When you work in the office, the manager can always access your performance and ensure you are doing well. However, when working at home, your manager may not have physical contact, and they probably may not analyse your performance. However, there is software that can analyse the performance of employees, even if they are working from home.
Let's assume a situation where a company has installed a monitoring camera for their work from home employees? Don't you think that could infringe the employee's privacy? In most cases, you'll realise that they will be working thinking they are being watched, and this could be a problem when it comes to balancing work/home life.
What do your employees want?
The first procedure of improving employee performance is talking to them and finding out what they want and what they expect from you as their employer. Making decisions without their consent may discourage their morale and make them feel like they don't count in the company. But when you establish what they want, it will be easy for them to perform their tasks. People who work while they are happy can always do much better than those who work while they are sad, frustrated or disappointed.
To work at home, require sacrifice because the family will be relying on you, and they expect that you attend to their needs as well. So, if the manager is too strict on you, probably it may be hectic to manage both your family and working life. A good manager who knows what makes their employees happy always tries to provide an excellent working environment or strategy. And as such, we assure you that your work at home employees will deliver beyond your expectation, a move that can improve your business performance.
Create a working schedule
As much as the employees are mandated to be answerable to you whenever you need their attention, at times, this can piss them off. An organised manager should be the kind who has plans and programs every activity in advance. By creating a work schedule, it can be straightforward for your workers to fit into your program and reorganise their projects well. This option can help them to take care of the family as well as performing company tasks successfully.
For instance, assume you have a female employer working from home, the love of a mother won't let her sit on the computer attending to the company needs when their kids need their attention. Probably, to some extent, this can be a challenge, but a perfectly organised schedule could solve all this problem. As you manage the program, you should carry out research and ensure the plan won't be too frustrating, but at least, it should also keep your worker's performance above the grid.
You can use reliable software schedulers that not only allow you to organise your events in a computer but allow easy sharing of information with your employees. Perhaps, by now, you understand that communication is the key to improved performance.
Track employee performance
How do you know if your employees are performing well? Can you be able to gauge their happiness level by looking at them? Well, these are some tasks that are hectic to analyse, especially if they are working at home. However, since we are in the 21st century, almost everything is possible. The first measure you should take as a manager is to install tracking software on the mobile device or computer they will be using. The tracking software will let you know the amount of time they spend while working.
With the raw data collected, you can know if their performance is reducing or increasing. However, when it comes to analysing how happy your employers are while working at home, you can conduct a survey where the employees will give their answers anonymously. When you get the data, you will find what makes them happy and what makes them sad. As a result, you can perfect in significant areas that can improve their happiness level. This helps you build a happy cooperate workforce that performs flawlessly.
Do not discourage working from home
A good manager should understand that if the employee prefers to work at home could be as good as work at the office. One misconception company managers have is that when you work at home, you may be less productive. This isn't true because if you have a good management strategy, a worker working from home could do much better than those working in the office. This was according to the CoSo cloud survey that established that 30% of those who work remotely complete their task in less time while 70% of them are very productive.
It's straightforward and efficient to manage working from home staff by using video conferencing, VoIP, instantly massaging. Moreover, you can use scheduling software to perfect their schedules. So, if you can encourage working from home, then there is an assurance that your business will perform much better.
The negative impact of working at home
It saves much of your time to work from home as you don't have to rush every morning to work. However, if you are not careful, it may be comfortable managing home relationships. But a more organised worker will know how to handle both cases. So, here are some negative impacts of working from home.
Lack of discipline
For the first few weeks, you were hired, how did you react when you saw your managers approaching? Well, face-to-face contact with your manager can help you to be very productive as you can understand them and know what they expect and mark you you'll learn how to handle work in the appropriate time. Remote work on the other side requires a high level of personal discipline to accomplish a task in a given time. At some moments, you may dedicate a 30-minute break to make breakfast, and you find yourself spending over one hour. This kind of discipline if not monitored, can negatively impact the business profits.
Missing team spirit
It's always productive when you work as a team in the office as your team members will always motivate you when you feel like you can't move any further. You'll also miss that feeling of being around coworkers. However, video conferencing can connect you but not as good as face-to-face communication.
Interruption
Unless you have disciplined your kids so as not to interrupt you when you are in the office, else, an interruption can be a significant setback for remote workers. Moreover, there is a lot of destruction and interruption that you may have if your home working area isn't set to the standard of an office. Furthermore, you may also have visitors at home, and you will have to attend to them. However, you can be more productive if you design a room in the section that's free from traffic and the external happenings won't have to affect your attention.
Relationship Issues
Working at an office can be the right way of maintaining professional ethics. However, when working at home with your partner around, it can be kind of hectic to control the interruption. Some partners do not understand the effort needed to maintain remote working requirements so they may think you are avoiding them. The best way to manage the home relationship and work ethics is to set a system that will favour all of you. Like for instance, where working on something that needs full concentration, you can be free from interruption. But when checking emails, or reading massages, well, in between you may break the boredom by instructing with your partner.
Unexpected Expenses
When you're working at the office, you want to have to deal with the maintenance cost, your employers will Carter for any damaged computer and ensure you usually work. However, working at home can be challenging, especially when your laptop breaks down. You'll need to cater for the expenses yourself, and this can come at a time you don't expect. That can be a setback, and you can lose a lot of money in the process.
Conclusion
Well, work at home is very beneficial to both employers and employees; however, it's challenging for those employees who aren't much conversant with a computer. But conducting training to your employees and educating on your company ethics could help solve the problems. Moreover, when you have employees working from home, you'll be saving on cost as you'll not have to rent a large office for the employees.