Boosting remote employee engagement is critical to the success of any remote team. When leading a remote team that’s failing to fully engage in the work, the team’s output will diminish over time. The shortcut to fixing this? Prioritizing consistent, clear team communication.

What is remote employee engagement?

Remote employee engagement is all about the emotional commitment that team members have to a company and its goals. Remote employee engagement can be measured both quantitatively and qualitatively.

According to research from the Harvard Business Review, 62% of employees feel working remotely positively impacts engagement, yet only 5% are likely to stay at their organization for the long term. This seemingly-paradoxical mix presents leaders with a mandate to step up engagement efforts.

Team building activities promote cross-team communication and support effective employee engagement. If you’re serious about improving remote employee engagement, you should be dedicating time each week to team-building activities. These can be designed to strengthen relationships, encouraging team members to communicate with each other.

Does remote working affect employee engagement?

According to a recent Gallup study, employees spending 60% to 80% of their time working remotely are the most likely to be engaged. Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, the number of hours spent working off-site was increasing, as was the number of workers.

How do you engage employees virtually?

A team leader’s approach to co-worker communication is a critical input into engagement. To boost employee engagement and improve team performance, leaders need to have four types of conversations with their remote workers:

1. Role and relationship development
2. Quick connect and casual check-in
3. Developmental coaching
4. Progress review
   

Remote employees are three times more likely to be engaged if they receive feedback from their team leader at least a few times every month. 

Is remote work good for employees?

Isolation and loneliness are two major challenges faced by remote workers. Unfortunately, many remote workers suffer in silence. Employees dealing with isolation and loneliness can become disengaged. It’s important to remember that isolation and loneliness are two different things. 

Loneliness among remote team members can be addressed through team-building activities on video conferencing tools like Zoom. These lighthearted activities create an opportunity for team members to communicate with each other and build on existing relationships.

Isolation usually stems from a lack of meaningful connection. To combat feelings of isolation among team members, team leaders should consistently communicate with every employee, creating space for issues to be raised and addressed. Group activities can also be beneficial.

What is effective employee engagement?

Effective employee engagement is predicated on developing the emotional connection between the employee and the organization. Employee engagement begins with strengthening relationships on a team and bringing everyone together for group activities, such as games.

When team members feel as though they know their co-workers on a personal level, this can change their approach to cross-team communication. With a tight-knit team, everything is better. A culture shift won’t happen overnight - but with the right resources, you will have foundations for change.

Water Cooler Trivia is the perfect example of a remote employee engagement activity. This has the potential to become your team’s new favorite weekly ritual. Water Cooler Trivia is used to create and distribute engaging trivia quizzes. You choose the trivia categories and categories. We write the questions and grade the results. It’s a fully automated process.