A few days ago, a number of us began a discussion on Twitter. I am delighted and excited about engaging in this ideafest with @RitaCJackson , VP and Team Lead of Sales for HRmarketer and @JenniferBrogee, Chief Information Officer for myStaffingPro . We all agreed to have duelling blogs today so here is my first one. First of all, the discussion began about a piece in World At Work. The article pointed out that there has been a decrease of 7.5 million teleworkers since 2008. The challenge posed was what can employers do to engage remote workers. It is a tough challenge but one that is critical organizations want to grow and thrive. Even at 26.2 million teleworkers, that comprises 20% of the adult working population so you can see how significant that is. Here are a couple of my thoughts on this to get this discussion started.
- Bring your technology up to speed. It doesn’t need to be too sophisticated or even that expensive. Today, You Tube, on line meetings, Skype, etc. Go beyond the telephone conference calls. Obviously, the key is easy and continuous access to the Internet.
- Bring your staff up to speed. They have to feel comfortable with the technology so that it is second nature to them like the telephone was for the old folks like me.
- Create a quality and easy to use intranet. Make it attractive and user friendly. Easy navigation is important as is making sure it is consistent with your brand. In fact, this will have a secondary benefit in that it will familiarize all your employees with your brand.
- When you have your technology at a working level, you need to COMMUNICATE, consistently and often. This is no different than in the “pre-internet” days. Transparency is critical. Once people know that this is an important way to communicate, leadership needs to use it to let people know what is going on in the organization.
- Most importantly though is the COMMITTMENT to interactive communications. This is not your grandparents’ communication strategy where the founder would give a speech or drop a newsletter to employees informing them of what is going on. The organization must have a strategy of interacting with employees so when they see something and respond, they get a response back. Treat it as if it were a virtual office where they can virtually knock on your door and have a conversation.
Obviously what I have laid out is a perfect world creation. Don’t give up. It is okay to begin small and grow into it. The only thing you need to do is develop a short and long term strategy and a gradual plan for evolving into it. AND stay with it. Don’t make it the “flavor of the month” which dies when things get rough.
Good luck and remember this is the future.
And don’t forget to see what my fellow duelers HRMarketer.com blog and myStaffingPro.com blog have to say.
Tags: employee engagement, engaged workers, remote workers, teleworkers
July 15th, 2011 at 6:31 am
What is consistent across our dueling blogs is COMMUNICATION! That seems to be the key to effective remote work. I love reading everyone’s perspectives. This has been a great duel!
July 15th, 2011 at 8:22 am
Great discussion – 2 points come to mind. The work product of remote employees is often not as visible as the traditional setting. It is important to acknowledge the contribution that these employees make on a regular basis. Secondly, remote employees need to be responded to quickly when they experience problems with technology or need information/consultation from managers. Hard to have “work arounds” when you are remote.
July 15th, 2011 at 10:24 am
Wow – I cannot believe that one topic could sprout so many thought provoking points of view, but one stood out. Communication.
I particularly appreciated the statistics shown in this blog to bring context to the subject.
Well written my duelling adversary; well written!
July 19th, 2011 at 11:10 am
I totally agree that as a remote employee, contecting with colleagues is essential. Thankfully, technology has made it possible to work almost as if your peers were all together. My sister recently introduced me to ooVoo which allows all parties to see and hear each other while conferencing. Yet another tool to keep the lines of communication open.
January 25th, 2012 at 2:40 am
Engaging to remote workers is not that easy just like having an ordinary employee who is working in your office. This time it is more complicated where employees are located all over the world and working from their home using their own computer. Employers must exert more effort on this business in order to be effective. I also agree that COMMUNICATION is the key to effective remote work. Most of online business fails because of lack of communication. There are also different online tools and resources that can help you before engaging to remote workers. Here is an article that you might want to check before engaging to remote workers.