How To Keep Loyal And Happy Employees While They Work Remotely

Remote Employee Loyalty In The COVID-19 Era
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Summary: How to boost employee retention in the work-from-home era? Businesses must provide benefits that make it worth it to stay with the company. Find out the best strategies to retain happy and loyal employees who will help your business succeed.

Remote Employee Loyalty In The COVID-19 Era

Despite COVID-19 and the economic downturn, there are plenty of opportunities for highly-skilled employees. As a result, businesses must focus on employee retention because the alternative is expensive. Toggl Hire reports that replacing an employee is priced at around 50% to 60% of their annual salary. More importantly, turnover also costs around 90% to 200% of an employee’s annual salary. How to boost employee retention in the work-from-home era? Businesses must provide benefits that make it worth it to stay with the company. While social distancing has made it more difficult for managers and higher-ups to connect and engage with their workforce, there are still plenty of strategies that can help you retain the employees you currently have. Now, how can businesses keep employees loyal and happy? Here are the tips you need to know.

1. Provide eLearning And eTraining Opportunities For Professional Growth

A job will lose its shine when there’s a lack of growth and learning opportunities. Tenured employees who have mastered the skills required for the job may feel bored. Hence, they are likely to seek new opportunities outside your organization.

How to make them loyal? Provide remote employees avenues for professional growth through eTraining and eLearning opportunities. Not only will your remote employees gain new skills, but your business will also benefit from their newfound knowledge.

Online platforms like LinkedIn Learning, Udemy for Business, and Coursera provide remote workers with in-depth courses on tech, marketing [1], design, and business. You can even allot a few hours per week for online training so employees can learn something new.

A good tip is to use an online educational platform with a Learning Management System (LMS) to assess the results from the training. Pay attention to assessment grades, completion rates, and forum engagement.

2. Encourage Regular Communication

Most remote employees won’t feel a sense of loyalty with your organization if they don’t have ties to their co-workers or managers. Plus, it's harder to work remotely when there is no sense of collaboration amongst team members.

To resolve this issue, create avenues of communication. First, choose the best collaboration software [2] for your team members. For example, launch a Slack channel so remote employees engage with their co-workers and management. Use a project management platform or messaging app to schedule meetings and make announcements. Host weekly team meetings and give everyone an opportunity to discuss their tasks or deadlines so you can get a heads-up if someone is experiencing issues. By streamlining communication, you can foster collaboration and boost employee retention.

3. Train Managers

People don’t quit a job—they quit a boss. If employees in a common department are leaving your organization, the manager could be the main problem. According to a Gallup study, 50% of employees [3] quit their job because of a bad boss. No one wants to work under a tyrannical leader or a ruthless manager. A bad boss makes work miserable, causes undue stress, and damages team results.

On the bright side, improving management does not take rocket science. Work with HR personnel or collect manager feedback to discover potential managerial problems. Just like your regular employees, train your managers through eTraining and eLearning programs. A skilled manager will understand the best way to communicate with their team, manage their time, as well as strategies to maximize performance.

4. Recognize employee accomplishments

When work is online, some employees may feel that their efforts are not significant. You can’t just assign daily tasks and assume people will feel appreciated.

In fact, Proofhub reports that over 65% of employees [4] do not feel recognized at work. Yet, if the tables were turned, 69% of them would work harder.

Recognizing employee accomplishments and giving word-of-mouth referrals is important in the work-from-home era. We all love to receive praise from our boss and co-workers for a job well done. Yet, remote workers may feel more isolated when managers forget to reassure them.

To solve this issue, higher-ups must give verbal and written praise to their employees. Don’t forget to say “Thank you!” or “Great work!” for a job well done, especially if someone earned it. When a team has made astounding accomplishments, throw a virtual party or run a company-wide webinar [5] recognizing those that deserve praise. You can even mail them gifts and pizza to have a festive vibe.

5. Onboard New Joiners The Right Way

It’s daunting enough joining a new company—it’s even harder to do remotely. So many of the little touchpoints that help to make a new colleague truly part of the team fall away without the shared physical space of an office. It’s important to have a structured, rigorous, and welcoming process in place for remote onboarding [6], covering everything from IT setup and team intros to tooling, ways of working, meeting cadences, and social events. Don’t forget about pre-boarding either—that’s the period between signing the contract and starting the job, as you don’t get a second chance to make a first impression.

It’s a big ask for new joiners to feel like a valuable part of a team they’ve never actually met. Don’t neglect the onboarding process, and make sure it’s fit for the remote environment.

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Conclusion

There are a lot of ways businesses can keep remote workers happy and loyal. Provide professional training and learning opportunities so employees can achieve professional growth. Just like your regular staff, consider training your managers as well to implement a collaborative and healthy remote work culture. Recognize employee success by giving praises, and find out potential issues by launching communication channels.

How are you keeping your remote workers loyal? Let us know in the comments below.

References:

[1] Online Marketing Courses: 30 Resources to Become a Rockstar in Digital Marketing

[2] Best Collaboration Software

[3] 4 shocking statistics that every manager needs to know

[4] Surprising Stats on Employee Recognition You Need to Know (+ Key Insights)

[5] Best Webinar Software Platforms

[6] Introducing: The remote onboarding guide