The lingering threat of the highly contagious pandemic has scared the entire humanity. Every person is taking the best precautions to prevent catching the deadly infection and so are business organizations. Most of them have transitioned to the remote working culture to avoid gathering employees in the office. But, this transition has posed multifarious challenges for business organizations, and keeping the workforce productive is a major one out of them.
It is not that the employees are at some fault. No, nothing like that! It’s just about the situation they are in. They have to work from the comforting ambiance of their home. Even if they designate a specific workspace for themselves, there are plenty of distractions available to disturb their focus. Disturbance from family members including children who are staying back at home amidst the pandemic, taking care of their needs, and enhanced responsibilities for household hygiene are all taking a huge toll on their productivity.
Although HR managers and leaders cannot do much about these factors as they are inevitable in the current situation, they can certainly work on other things to ensure high productivity from their remote workforce. Given below are some simple and effective ways for HR managers to keep their remote workforce productive:
- Recognize the employees:
Recognition is a strategy that works best to stimulate someone to become his most productive self. It enhances a person’s self-esteem and triggers feelings of happiness. As this happens he gets inspired to become his most productive self for he knows better productivity will fetch him more recognition, which will enhance his self-esteem even more and trigger greater feelings of happiness. So, in simple words, HR managers can beacon remote workers on the road to productivity by making recognition of their primary act. Even if they don’t have a big reason to recognize someone, they can begin with the smallest of the reasons. For instance, they can recognize someone for his punctuality and he’ll end up becoming even more punctual. He will not be unpunctual even for a single day and start working on bettering his performance too.
- Spend some time on positive conversations every day:
“Words can inspire and words can destroy. Choose yours well.” These words by Robin Sharma truly represent how powerful words are. Along with this, the story of the ‘deaf frog’ also validates that words have immense power. The deaf frog climbed a tall tree because it could not listen to the warnings of other frogs who tried to stop him. If he had listened to their warning, he would not even try to climb the tree. Such is the power of words. On similar terms, if HR managers spend some time having positive conversations with their remote team every day, they can give a huge boost to their enthusiasm and productivity. So, they should try to schedule some time for positive morning interactions with their remote team. They can tell their remote employees that they are the best, nothing is impossible for them, and also share motivational stories with them. Further, they can utilize conference voice calls or video calls for this purpose. But, generally, video calls offer better results as they combine both audio and visual effects.
- Be empathetic towards the employees:
Just like ‘recognition’, empathy is also a basic human need. Everyone wishes to have people around who can understand his emotions, feelings, and extend emotional support to him. Similarly, employees also wish for their managers to be empathetic towards them. They want them to support them during tough times like the ones going on currently. If under such circumstances, the managers do not be empathetic towards them, they distance themselves from work and exhibit low productivity. They no longer feel emotionally connected to their organization and they work merely to earn their paycheque. Thus, HR managers need to be empathetic towards their employers especially during the ongoing pandemic. They should not be harsh towards them and try to understand their situations.
- Help the employees de-stress:
The current period is highly stressful for every human being. The pandemic is spreading its wings throughout the globe, claiming lakhs of lives worldwide. But, stress negatively impacts employee productivity. So, it is crucial for HR managers to address the issue of employee stress. If they don’t do so employees will remain stressed and unproductive. Given below are some ways for HR managers to help their remote employees with stress management:
- Group meditation sessions:
Meditation is highly beneficial in stress management. It lowers the stress levels and enhances one’s resilience against stress. So, HR managers can simply organize group meditation sessions to help their employees manage stress and become their productive selves again.
- Playing games together:
Playing is a simple activity that increases the production of happy hormones in the body. As this happens, one’s stress level naturally lowers down and he starts feeling energetic again. So, HR managers can play games with their remote workers via video conferencing. Charades, Pictionary, and Bingo are some games which they can play with the employees.
- Having virtual get-together sessions:
Sometimes just talking to others acts as a great way of stress relief. So, HR managers should organize virtual get-together sessions to let their employees have a word with each other and vent their emotions out. They can easily conduct these virtual get-together sessions by utilizing video conferencing apps such as Google Meet, CISCO Webex meetings, and Go to Meeting.
- Give them some flexibility:
As discussed above, in the current situation, the employees have to shoulder enhanced hygiene responsibilities at home. So, at times they have to indulge in multitasking. This results in a loss of productivity. But, HR managers can easily prevent this loss of productivity by extending some flexibility to their remote employees. They can give them the freedom to complete their work targets anytime during the day with a strict regulation that the work assigned should be completed on the same day. By doing so, they’ll help the remote workers avoid multitasking and work with maximum productivity.
- Keep a check on micromanagement:
‘Micromanagement’ is a killer of productivity. When employees face micromanagement, which is excessive control from their managers, they feel frustrated. They start believing that their managers don’t have faith in their abilities. As a result, they lose their productivity. So, it is crucial for HR managers to keep a check on micromanagement especially during these times when they are already feeling stressed about the pandemic. They should take care that neither the team leaders nor the managers micromanage the employees at all. If they do so, the productivity of the remote workers will naturally remain high.
- Set an example:
It is a simple fact that if the leaders are productive, the workforce becomes productive. But, if the leaders are unproductive, the workforce remains unproductive. This implies that to keep the remote workers highly productive, the HR managers and leaders have to be highly productive themselves. They should exhibit high energy, an optimistic demeanor, and complete their work targets in time.
As discussed throughout, the pandemic has made organizations transition to remote work, which has left HR managers struggling to keep their remote workforce productive. But, there are some effective ways through which HR managers can ensure high productivity from remote workers and they have been given above. Now, wishing every HR manager the best of luck for cultivating a highly productive remote workforce.
Summary: The pandemic has hit the world so suddenly and brought everything to a halt. It is highly contagious so everybody is advised to maintain proper social distancing to avoid catching the infection from an infected person. To ensure the maximum safety of their employees under such circumstances, business organizations have transitioned to remote working. But, the prevalence of remote working has made it challenging for HR managers to keep their remote workforce productive. They can overcome this challenge by following some effective ways such as recognizing them, having regular conversations with them, and helping them de-stress.
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