More and more, the idea of working from home is becoming the norm. Yes, we had to adapt quickly but a lot of us found that we liked it, and before we knew it, everyone was taking their laptops home.
Sometimes there isn’t a choice in the matter. Even if we weren’t supposed to keep two meters from the nearest person, there is traveling to think about, and the rising digital nomad lifestyle taking people away from offices.
So how do you keep your staff motivated when you’re not around? Is there anything you can do to make sure your staff not only need to work, but want to work when their bed is just a wall away? Take a look at our top tips for keeping staff motivated while they’re working from home.
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Bonuses and benefits
The most obvious idea is to reward good work. Any form of appreciation is sure to yield good results in the future. If a staff member feels unappreciated in their place of work, they are not likely to take it for too long.
There are a lot of things you can do to reward good work, but a friendly smile or a “Well done” aren’t going to cut it. The two best options are benefits and bonuses. Benefits are the ongoing option, that serves as a reminder to employees what they are working for, and bonuses are a little something extra that will show a little extra appreciation for this one-off situation.
If you have a large team, you can use software to manage employee benefits. Zest allows you to assign benefits and bonuses with a quick press of a button from your smartphone or laptop and employees can see in real-time when they have been rewarded for their work.
Training
Training can be a great way to motivate employees. Maybe the employee is new and needs to be shown a new skill to progress, sometimes an existing employee needs to earn a new skill for a promotion, sometimes the whole team needs a new skill to shake up everyday operations or attract new customers. Whatever the case, training means growth. It means learning something new and advancing in your field of work, which can be a great motivator.
Sites like SkillShareFor Teams and LinkedIn Learning offer subscription-based courses with the ability to watch over everyone’s progress. LinkedIn Learning in particular focuses on entrepreneurial skills and has courses that cover everything to do with business, creativity, and tech.
If you have someone who would make a good choice for a better position but need a qualification, you can look into the Open University. Remote learning is the point of the Open University, with courses in everything from math to art and business management in between. Build up your credits until you have enough for an official qualification.
Organization
If you find yourself growing anxious about how much work is being done and who is doing what, you might want to look into a project management platform like Trello.
Trello will allow you to delegate your daily work amongst your staff as well as track who is doing what. Watch the workflow in with your staff ticking off tasks as they go and be sure that no one is lagging behind or not pulling their weight.
If you have a big project coming up, you can split it into more bitesize pieces and split it amongst the members of your team. With everyone ticking off their progress as they go, there will be no chance of anything slipping through the cracks.
