Working in a virtual environment is not easy primarily when you have been used to staying around your workmates at the place of work daily. When you spend several days at home, you can feel disconnected and isolated, and this typically leads to a sharp decline in the morale of staff.
Morale drives the engagement and productivity of any staff. When it is at higher levels, companies will realize their ultimate potential. However, morale is something you have to build when operating remotely.
So, how do you maintain morale while at the workplace? Charge your productivity and workplace motivation with these simple tips. Read on to learn about them.
Be Connected
When you are working from home, employees must know that they can still reach their managers and seniors if they have any issues and would require some helping hand.
To stay connected while working from home, you need to spend time with your colleagues. However, this may be done virtually, it’s generally about time dedication to your staff.
Probably, you may have already been holding one-to-one meetings. You can benefit from making more of these meetings while working from home.
Use Zoom
Moreover, you may have known that video calls can help you stay connected than voice calls while working from your virtual workplace. Through facial expressions and body language during these one-to-ones, the remote staff is convinced and reassured.
Ensure that you spend some of that meeting period, not speaking on future deadlines or targets. However, show some interest besides work to make the employees feel that you care about them as humans, and this, in turn, boosts their morale.
You may be experiencing some challenges about time constraints as a manager, yet, you can still allocate some short time for your staff regularly; this will help the morale of your employees.
Always Keep the Company’s Vision Clear
If you are not within the office, you may feel detached from your organization. To sustain motivation and high morale, you need to remind yourself of how your role adds up to the company’s more exceptional picture.
Also, employees need to identify what is taking place, although they are not in the office; this can be done through messaging. Sometimes, you can be tempted to keep bad news from your staff, yet it would benefit everyone when they feel how transparent you are.
Additionally, as you share more good news with your staff, you keep their morale high, therefore improving their productivity as they work remotely.
Recognition Is Significant
When a person appreciates and notices your work, it boosts your morale significantly. Now, when you work from home, this can have a massive impact, since you are not there to receive the thanks in person, you can feel that your efforts have been noticed.
Do not the chance to appreciate your staff if they have done an exemplary job. As a manager, you can improve your staff’s morale by asserting their importance to the overall picture of the company, and this makes them feel valued to the business.
Usually, appreciation and recognition will assist in keeping high morale in the employees as they work in the office, but will even be more significant as they operate from home.
Incentivize Employee Social Interaction
While in an office environment, you can have a break or a public eating place where you can interact and mingle with colleagues to maintain morale.
However, when working from home, you can miss the fun element of work. This can have a considerable impact on the motivation and morale of staff.
Therefore, social activities need to continue among remote staff, as most of the activities done in the office can be done remotely.
As such, employees can be motivated to meet virtually and play games online during lunch breaks, or introduce a video chat for the staff to discuss how their day has been.
Keep Development and Learning a Priority
Employees can feel relaxed at stagnant in their careers while working from home. To ensure high morale, you can allow your employees to learn and develop continually.
You can achieve this via E-learning, where employees can get into some training sessions according to their preference.
Learning new skills boosts the morale of the employees, and also make them know that their employer invests and values them.
Conclusion
Many people may not be used to remote work, and this can negatively impact their morale to a great extent.
However, this morale can still be improved by following simple tips and ensuring that your business remains productive.
