Communicating With WFH/Hybrid Employees Can Be Tough – Here Are Our Tricks

Do you have employees who are remote work from home or hybrid (part-time in the office?

If your business has made a shift from full-time, face-to-face work to providing remote working options, it may be putting productivity and quality at risk if effective communication is not maintained.

Just because you no longer see your staff face-to-face doesn’t mean your communication has to suffer. Here are some ways you can keep your remote team on track.

Have A Communication Plan

Having a set schedule for work calls and virtual meetings or requiring employees to provide reports or updates at certain times, keeping a clear communication plan can help keep your staff on track with their work and with each other. It’s a good idea to record this in writing using tools such as shared calendars or reminders.

Define Goals And Roles

Outline project goals and objectives to ensure everyone is working towards the same result. Delegate roles and obligations to each team member to avoid confusion and overlap. This will keep the team on track despite not physically seeing what each other is up to.

Utilise Messaging Tools

Messages are a great way to communicate with your staff and keep a written account of tasks and ideas. If your business relies on teamwork, group messaging chats are essential to keeping everyone on the same page; otherwise, miscommunication and confusion are huge risks.

This will also allow employees to chat amongst each other in a group setting as they would normally do in the workplace and can help them retain a positive work attitude by providing a sense of collegiality and normalcy.

Provide Performance Feedback

With everyone working remotely, it can be hard to monitor the performance and quality of your employees. Providing performance feedback fortnightly or monthly can help your employees continue to learn and improve, as well as keeping them productive knowing that their work will be reviewed.

Recognition

Providing positive and encouraging comments in the office seems very natural and easy to do. Still, when it comes to remote workers, it is easy for employers and managers to forget about taking the time to show recognition for the work employees are doing. Just like anyone else, remote employees should receive adequate praise and recognition for the high-quality work they do; without it, they are likely to become disengaged.