Effective Ways to Optimize your Remote Worker’s Experience

We all would agree on the fact that the contemporary corporate world is undergoing some paradigm changes. The business world we see today is a lot different from how it seemed a few years back. What lies at the heart of the contemporary business world is an unimaginable saga of magnificent digitalization. Remote work cultures are swiftly replacing traditional office setups paving the way for a new normal. 

Today, organizations are either going completely remote or hiring additional human capital as per remote working arrangements. This explains why a lot of organizations today are interested in effective strategies for remote employee engagement and enhancing the experiences of virtual workforces. Needless to say, even if organizations are going increasingly remote, they still acknowledge the vitality of investing in employee experience in engagement.

However, the fact of the matter is that cultivating positive employee experiences in a virtual work environment is easier said than done. As an employer or HR manager, it will take a lot more from you to create a high-performing remote work culture by investing in employee experience. When it comes to your remote workers, you need some outside-the-box strategies to engage your remote workers through experiences they can cherish for a lifetime. For example, a virtual escape room or online trivia are fun events for employees to bond and collaborate, thus helping to build a positive work culture.

In this blog, we look at some innovative ways in which you can enhance your remote workers’ experience in an incredible way. Even if your organization still operates in a traditional brick-and-mortar environment, in the future, you will surely need these tactics. How long do you think you can resist the need for having at least some sort of remote working arrangement? Sooner or later, your business too will feel the need to align with remote cultures. Having said that, in any case, this blog will add incredibly to the knowledge of employers and HR managers. 

Enhance Virtual Onboarding Experiences

Why not create amazing employee experiences from the word go? In fact, you may want to believe it or not but employees are most likely to remember their onboarding experiences for a lifetime. Having said that, it is a great idea to offer fascinating virtual onboarding experiences to your new recruits. 

The question is, what does it take to offer brilliant virtual onboarding experiences to your employees? Well, there are quite a few ways in which you can do that. To begin with, you can send a personalized welcome mail to the new remote employees with best wishes. Besides, if you want to go a step further, you can send a personalized welcome kit to your remote employees through courier services. Also, be mindful of everything related to global payroll in order to set the appropriate expectations. Let employees know they’re being taken care of regarding their paychecks.

Besides, another great way to create mesmerizing onboarding experiences is to give your remote employees a virtual tour of the office. Also, you can offer them an opportunity to virtually interact with their team members on the first day itself. In this way, you can foster a strong sense of belongingness among your new employees from the very beginning.

Did you know that as per TechJury, with impressive onboarding experiences, companies can retain up to 69 percent of their employees for 3 years? That is quite fascinating to know, isn’t it? Besides, as per Bamboo HR, great onboarding experiences can lead to 18 times higher commitment among employees. These insights clearly state that laying emphasis on great onboarding experiences is totally worth it.

Host Mental Health Webinars

In the modern corporate world, employee stress is for real irrespective of whether your employees are working on-site or remotely. As per a Deloitte Survey, 77 percent of employees in the modern workplace are experiencing burnout situations. Besides, if we talk about remote workers, in particular, as per Flexjobs, more than 75 percent of remote workers experience high stress and find themselves on the brink of burnout quite often. 

It is high time that leaders and organizations realize the simple fact that employee engagement and alarming rates of burnout cannot co-exist. Having said that, if we talk about the ways to enhance the experience of remote workers, there has to be a worthwhile discussion on mental wellness. This should go hand in hand with exploring different types of employee recognition such as performance-based recognition, milestone-based recognition, and value-based recognition.

Therefore, hosting virtual mental health webinars for your remote employees can be a great initiative for supporting their mental wellness. When you care for their wellness, they will feel valued and this will go down in their books as the highlight of their positive experience in the organization. Further, in lieu of such a positive experience, they will reciprocate greater allegiance and diligence to the organization.

All in all, you cannot get the best out of your employees unless they feel great physically or mentally. You always want them to have sharp cognitive skills and agile problem-solving skills, right? But do you think they can deliver on this expectation if they are always on the edge of burnout? Hence, the more you invest in their experience in terms of wellness the better will be the results.
 

Optimize Digital Learning Experiences

Workplace learning and development opportunities are silent to all employees irrespective of whether they are working on-site or in a virtual work environment. Speaking of millennials, as per Gallup, almost 90 percent of millennials assert that they look forward to effective learning opportunities in their jobs. Even if we put statistics aside for a while, everyone who has sincere career ambitions will hold learning and development in the highest regard, isn’t it?

Having said that, when employees talk about their experience in an organization, they will mostly view it in terms of their professional development. If you invest effectively in your employees' learning and development, they will respond with greater engagement. Otherwise, you may soon have to face the peculiar problems of high employee attrition.

Therefore, you should look to add consistent value to your employees’ personal development by enriching their learning experiences. In the virtual work environment, learning technologies like LMS, gamified learning, professional learning apps, and so on will help you in achieving great results. 

If we look around, there is a stellar range of technology disrupting the conduct of learning in the workplace. You need to determine the best fit remote learning methodologies for your organization to deliver great experiences to your employees. The greater the value you offer in terms of learning the more cherishable the experiences.
 

Invest in the Right Technology

If you ask your employees, doing recurring and monotonous tasks each day does take a toll on their motivation. Besides, if they have to put in additional effort for tasks that can be completed conveniently via the right tools, they will feel discouraged at some point. Given that, you can always improve your employees’ experience by investing in the right workplace technologies.

In fact, the right choice of digital tools and technologies can make a significant difference in terms of internal communication, collaboration, and tracking of project progress. If you can simplify the lives of your employees with automation technologies and tools that can assist them effectively, they will surely be thankful. In this way, you can create a great virtual work environment and reap the benefits of positive company culture in a worthwhile way.

However, with such an extensive range of project management and other tools available, it will be prudent to carry out meticulous research before you make the investments. Make sure you invest your money in scalable technologies that can add to business success in an incremental way.
 

Offer Additional Time Off

Another great way in which you can optimize your employees’ experience is by offering additional time off to them. In fact, this could be a great non-monetary reward idea for your organization. As we discussed above, even remote workers are prone to high stress which can soon translate into burnout experiences.

So, to assist your employees in preventing burnout and adding to their optimism, you can offer additional paid leaves to your best performers as a token of appreciation. To explain, let’s say as of now you offer two paid leaves to your employees per month. You can introduce a reward scheme wherein your top performer of the month can avail two additional paid leaves in that month.

Besides adding to your employees’ experience, you can also promote greater allegiance among them by showing greater sensitivity towards their struggle with stress. Such an initiative as part of employee rewards will come across as an empathetic initiative by the organization hence, further adding to employees’ experience.

Speaking of the significance of empathy in the workplace, as per Businessolver, 76 percent of employees opine that workplace empathy adds to their motivation and job satisfaction. Hence, with the small initiative of offering additional paid time to your employees, you can win the hearts of your employees in an inexpensive way.

Introduce Virtual Coffee Breaks

What we need to acknowledge is that remote workers carry a constant feeling of social isolation. To explain, when employees work on-site, they can have some lighthearted conversations with their colleagues. Besides, they can also express their feelings in front of their co-workers and also seek emotional or social support from them.

However, when it comes to a virtual workplace, they do not have this privilege. Further, the feeling of social isolation among them can soon turn into disengagement or even compel them to quit. As a business leader, you surely do not want that to happen, right? So, is there anything you can do to help your employees overcome the feeling of social isolation?

Well, there are some interesting ways in which you can offer great experiences to your employees such that they don’t have to battle the feeling of social isolation. Introducing a culture of virtual coffee breaks can be an amazing way to take some pressure off your employees and let them have some candid conversions with their co-workers.  

To explain, employees can coordinate their coffee breaks and connect via a zoom call to have some heartwarming conversations outside of work. During these small breaks, your employees can share their emotions with each other and foster strong interpersonal connections in the virtual environment. Having said that, they will be able to overcome the feeling of isolation in a worthwhile way and enjoy themselves while working.

For all these great benefits, these virtual coffee breaks make great sense, isn’t it? In fact, you can also participate in these fun discussions to vent out your own stress. Needless to say, as a leader, even you are vulnerable to high stress or social isolation while working remotely. These coffee breaks can be a great opportunity for you as well to deal with all the negativity around you.

Appreciate in Creative Ways 

Who says remote workers do not care about appreciation and recognition. For all employees in the world, appreciation is a crucial determinant of their satisfaction and experience. It is interesting to note that as per HubSpot, 70 percent of employees are of the view that they will work with greater zeal and dedication when they receive due appreciation from leaders. 

Having said that, while enhancing the experience of your remote employees, it is imperative to find creative ways for extending recognition to them. The question is, how can recognition work in a virtual workplace environment? Well, listed below are some fabulous ideas for appreciating your remote employees. 

• Social media shoutouts to celebrate employee achievements
• Offering recognition to employees via internal newsletters 
• Ordering surprise meals for employees as a token of appreciation
• Offering personalized rewards like OTT subscriptions, gym memberships, etc 
• Offering additional time off to your best-performing employees 

Besides, in a digital work environment, you can also introduce a digital employee benefits program to continuously add to your remote employees’ experience. By offering due recognition and in exciting ways, you can keep the morale of your remote employees high at all times. Subsequently, they will keep winning new milestones for their organization. For high workplace motivation in a remote environment, you need to explore employee appreciation ideas with great zest. Another effective way to enhance recognition in a virtual workplace environment is to recognize an employee with a custom award. Creating personalized awards tailored to each employee's accomplishments and presenting them virtually can provide a tangible symbol of appreciation, fostering a sense of pride and motivation among remote workers.

To encapsulate, organizations are going remote and virtual workplaces are in vogue. Sooner or later, your organization will have to embrace this transition as well if it has not so far. In the ultimate sense, organizations are only as competent as their employees and to keep getting the best out of them, you need to invest in their experiences on a consistent basis. Speaking of employee experience in a virtual workplace, the above strategies will surely give you a competitive edge.

Featured image by Simon Abrams on Unsplash