How to Balance Productivity and Well-being of Remote Teams

If working remotely is going to be the new normal for many companies—business leaders should ramp up productivity now, especially if they want get their business back on track as quickly as possible.

Here are three strategies to help your remote employees be more productive:

1.   Don’t lose your empathy

Leaders put their people’s safety and well-being at the centre of their decisions. Empathetic leadership will continue to be essential as you adapt to leading a remote team. Not only is leading with empathy the right thing to do, but people are more likely to be productive when they feel engaged and supported.

Remote teams in particular need:

Autonomy:  Trust your people to do what they need to do in order to juggle work with their other responsibilities.  Studies show that leaders who give remote employees true autonomy and flexibility see greater employee productivity.

Community:  Working from home can reduce opportunities for interactions and relationships. Encourage team building and explore ways for people to connect and get to know each other as people, not just co-workers.

2.   Up-Skilling

The sudden shift to remote work has underscored the need for employees to develop strong digital skills and adapt to new ways of working.

It is important to make time for people to develop new skills reseña. Employee development and up-skilling sometimes gets side-lined when leaders are focused on ramping up business, but on remote teams, productivity will drop if people are struggling to keep up with technology changes or new collaboration tools.

3.   Address productivity challenges individually

Sometimes the simplest way to help remote employees be more productive is to figure out what’s holding them back and work with them one-on-one to fix it.

There are a lot of factors that can affect individual productivity, but you won’t know what each person is facing unless you create a means for them to communicate with you. Also consider offering enhanced benefits. These targeted benefits can help people address their personal constraints so they can better focus on work.

Productivity is Possible, Even in a Pandemic

Increasing productivity doesn’t happen overnight. It’s realistic to expect a learning curve as you work to raise productivity among a workforce that isn’t used to working remotely.  But it is possible, even in a pandemic, to lead in a way that makes it easier for people to balance their responsibilities, manage their stress, and focus on work. Putting these practices in place now can help remote teams steadily improve their ability to collaborate, problem-solve, and ultimately produce.

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