When employees aren’t sharing a workspace together, it takes extra effort to ensure teams feel connected and build a strong culture of trust. Developing your remote employees requires strategic planning, honest communication, and consistency. Don’t let physical distance create emotional distance between your team members. Take time to intentionally build connections among your employees and cultivate a cohesive, remote team. These are the building blocks of engaged and productive employees no matter where they do their work. Keep these tips in mind when crafting your strategy for engaging remote employees.

Working alone can cause you to lose track of time and become so engaged in your to-do list that you forget to take breaks or manage your time effectively. When you work from home, you can often adapt your schedule to suit your needs. If you know that you can fit in some early-morning work that will then give you how companies benefit when employees work remotely the space and time to care for an older relative, or drop your child at school, this can be the flexibility you need to make work work for you. In this article we look at some of the pros and cons of remote working – and some of the jobs best suited to it – to help you decide if it’s the right choice for you.

More Remote Jobs

Employers now understand the benefits of having their staff operating remotely as many see productivity increase or expenses fall. One survey suggests that companies can save $11,000 annually on average per part-time remote employee, translating to 21% greater profitability. Moreover, 34% of employees responding to a 2019 Owl Labs survey indicated they’d take a pay cut for a remote position. Moreover, they’re saving vast amounts of time each week by forgoing the daily commute, which also reduces absenteeism and increases productivity. Remote work can make managing job duties and other competing obligations less stressful with the understanding that employees are people, first and foremost.

The remote work policy should outline the criteria for eligibility and the scope of remote work within your organization. With that said, let’s take a look at what an effective remote work policy should include. Most (52%) workers said a hybrid working environment had become their preferred way to work, while 30% would rather work from home full-time, and 18% want to go back to the office permanently.

New work: Why remote is here to stay

As someone who’d never really understood the perks of remote work, my time at HubSpot has allowed me to embrace this work style. While I primarily work in office, I usually spend one or two days a week working from home. During this time, I’m able to build out content strategies, take time for analytics reporting, and churn out hefty blog posts with limited interruption. This is definitely apparent at HubSpot, where we have a quickly growing fleet of more than 300 full-time remote employees as well as partial remote options for those who work in our offices. After weighing the pros and cons of remote work, many businesses may want employees to return to the office. It is up to the employer to make that transition as easy and painless for workers as possible.

But building a strong onboarding program can help reduce turnover and give remote employees the tools and support they need to do well—and want to stick around. In addition to regular one-on-one meetings and team check-ins, pulse surveys help leaders “get a pulse” of their remote teams to see how things are going. They give people leaders valuable insight into what’s working and what’s not, and help identify gaps or opportunities in performance and engagement initiatives. Despite the many advantages and benefits of remote work, employee engagement isn’t a given. Engaging remote employees will require strategic efforts and ongoing evaluation. Just like your in-house employees, remote workers want to feel part of the company culture and team.

How to manage remote employees

But, before venturing into the world of remote work, businesses must take a look at their current office culture, team sizes, and business goals. But employers shouldn’t skip a wellness plan in the remote workplace; inclusion in company wellness programs, such as access to the gym, is just as important for those with a flexible work schedule. Currently, only a small share of the workforce in advanced economies—typically between 5 and 7 percent—regularly works from home. A shift to 15 to 20 percent of workers spending more time at home and less in the office could have profound impacts on urban economies.

• There are multiple benefits for allowing employees to work remotely when it comes to employee retention.
• When employees are remote, it can be easy to feel disconnected or even invisible to the rest of the team or organization—especially if your workforce has a hybrid mix of in-office and at-home employees.
• This not only allows you to monitor and support individual employees’ performance, but it also gives you a clearer picture of the entire team’s performance so nothing falls through the cracks.
• As more and more companies and employees embrace remote work, leaders and managers will need to re-learn and re-think some of the old ways of doing things.