How To Make Remote Employees Feel Included

According to statistics, about 19% of remote employees find loneliness their main challenge. Other challenges faced by these remote workers include feeling disconnected from reality. 

It is advisable to build and promote team members’ spirit and connection with the rest of the remote workforce. Taking this step into consideration will make your remote employees feel included. 

Failure to do so may result in employee disengagement, not to mention losing your top talent. Worse still, you may lose your company values and company culture of encouraging employee retention. 

So, how do you go about helping your remote employees feel part and parcel of your company? Read on to find out helpful tips that will make employee engagement easy.

1. Celebrate Successes with Your Remote Worker

Around 58% of employees say that relations with managers and human resource personnel in their workplaces can improve significantly with more recognition. Also, about 91% believe that if employers strongly or somewhat recognize their remote employers, it can make a difference in the productivity and growth of their companies. 

Recognition makes all types of employees feel happier and appreciated at work. As such, you can make your remote employees feel included by allowing them to celebrate their birthdays and share successes or wins with you. 

In addition to that, ensure that you have a proper employee recognition program in place to help cultivate a culture of teamwork and appreciation. Such programs will undoubtedly show your employees that you are truly grateful for their endless contributions to your company. 

It is usually difficult for employees to feel noticed, especially when they are working remotely. As a caring employer, take a while from your busy schedule to address this problem head-on. Make several check-ins using available communication channels to know your virtual team of workers’ wellness. Also, allow them to send or receive recognition when necessary. Let them tie their recognitions to your company values.

2. Spare Enough Time to have Some Fun

The best way to make your remote employees feel included and part of the team is to encourage them to engage in some meaningful fun. Allowing your employees to have fun can significantly bring out their true competitive spirit and uplift their mood while doing their remote work. 

Some of the top ideas that you may include in your remote employees’ fun moments are:

• Playing online games
• Organizing an exciting trivia quick
• Hosting virtual happy hours
• Asking each other challenging questions

You can achieve this feat by turning to video conferences to bring your remote workers together and initiate virtual hangouts. All these suggestions will motivate your remote employees to work hard and maintain the company values.

3. Promote Casual Chats

Working remotely can be difficult for your team of employees to find someone they can chat with. So, they often feel isolated as they miss out on someone they can interact with on a regular basis. 

Through chats, your remote team members can hold a meaningful conversation regardless of differences in their working hours and time zones. Also, chats can help them build connections, hold team meetings virtually, and know the well-being of their co-workers in general. 

Therefore, you should encourage casual chats and create enough time to catch up with both old and new employers working in the comfort of their homes. 

4. Make Good Use of Social Media platforms

Connect easily with your remote team of workers via social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, WhatsApp, Hangouts, LinkedIn, Skype, and Zoom. In particular, you can use Zoom and Skype apps to interact with your remote team members through video calls, videoconferencing, and video chats on a regular basis. 

You may also encourage your remote workers to take advantage of these platforms to start conversations, update posts, and even share ideas with their co-workers. Doing so will promote team building, maintain regular check-ins, and eliminate loneliness, especially during this pandemic period. Social media platforms are fun tools for your employees to leverage and even initiate conversations with each other.

5. Encourage Your Remote Team to Use Calendars Effectively

Working onsite or in the office can give you an idea of whether your employees want to interact or not. This is why you may have come across some employees with headphones on to avoid unnecessary interruption from their colleagues. 

Unfortunately, you cannot know the situation with your remote team members due to the great distance apart and different working hours. For that reason, encourage your team of workers, including new hires to make use of their calendars well. 

Allow some members to block time out if they need to concentrate on their work-related activities. By doing so, other team members will automatically know when their workmates are busy or ready to interact.

Final Thought

Make your remote employee feel included in your company’s affairs by applying most of the tips discussed above. Find some time to interact and even answer their questions. Don’t forget to always show them some recognition for a job well done.