There is no doubt that the unseen adversary – novel coronavirus – has brought entire nations to their knees. Not even the most powerful or the most brilliant minds have been able to control or fight it. The only solution left to cope up with this unprecedented crisis is to stay at home and practice social distancing. It is why most countries decided to go into lockdown.
With people sheltering in place, corporations and businesses have had to find new ways to work. Remote working and work from home have become the norm. While these strategies are excellent avenues to keep operations going, they do come with problems of their own.
For instance, staying in constant touch with all your employees has become difficult. Because of broken communication, employee engagement is lagging. So, how do you keep your workforce motivated, interested, and engaged in the home-bound times of coronavirus?
You use technology like the Audio Conference Call App and other online tools at your disposal to bring a closer connection. Use apps and cloud-computing to create a collaborative environment. Something as simple as a video conference call can connect employees virtually and bring back that missing human emotion to work!
Here are some of the things you can practice through a conference call app to increase employee engagement:
Every week have the entire team meet up through the app and discuss nuances of work from home. Instead of focusing on the work you do, talk about how WFH life is, what are the challenges, and what can be done better.
To recreate an actual office environment, get the team together for a Friday lunch from their homes over video-conference.
Employee engagement soars when you include some fun at work. Therefore, don’t limit to conference calls about work or WFH life. Incorporate short online game sessions that spark the mind like charade and Pictionary. To really involve every employee, try a virtual challenge. Everyone has a competitive spirit, invokes it using a photo contest, physical exercise competition, or trivia quizzes. With minimal time investment, you can effectively engage isolated workers.
At the end of each workday, do a quick catch-up video conference call through the app. In five minutes, discuss what they worked on today and how they are mentally coping up. By showing concern over their mental well-being, you increase a worker’s faith in you and thus, engagement.
Technology has made the present lockdown much easier. Utilize it to motivate your employee. Show appreciation for their work on social media where the world can see it. Or thank an employee on a conference call that includes the whole or majority of the workforce. Little things like thank you’s, and you did great are excellent at engaging employees.
The goal of these 5 strategies is to create a virtual community among your workers using a conference call app. The community keeps everyone connected 24×7. Moreover, it is informal, meaning the employees feel comfortable enough to share what’s on their minds and maintain the same camaraderie they had when they worked from an office.
Keep In Mind
Although technology like video conferencing can do wonders to bridge the gap of communication, you have to understand that each household is a different circumstance. Most people are tackling more work than usual due to house chores. So keep in mind to give your employees flexibility. Don’t be stringent with deadlines. Instead encourage workers to complete work at their pace. When you allow them this measure of flexibility, they are motivated, which strengthens their commitment to your firm!
The COVID-19 pandemic is an unforeseen circumstance. No one has experienced a similar situation before. Therefore, take one day at a time. Use each of the employee engagement tactics mentioned above and then evaluate which works best. Then stick to that particular strategy and your employees will be back to their previous productivity, efficiency, and happiness level!
