How to increase the productivity of remote employees outside the office

2023-01-16

One of the main challenges that come with remote work is ensuring that all of your employees can perform to the best of their abilities. While with remote work you might not be working from the same office as your employees, that does not mean you should not find new ways to increase their productivity levels even when they are away from the office.

This guide is going to provide you with some clear steps and tools that you can use to increase employee productivity positively.

1. Communication

Often when remote working, there is a chance that your employees may stop being as communicative about their productivity and tasks. It is up to you to maintain frequent communication that is necessary for creating a connection with your team members. Video conferencing, phone calls and even instant messaging can be great ways of checking in with your employees and creating a company culture that promotes active communication.

This can be particularly important for employees that are experiencing hardships that have reduced their productivity. Knowing that there is someone they can contact so that they can get back on track and increase their productivity again can be key.

What’s more, many employees might struggle with enforcing deadlines on themselves without any sort of oversight, so these frequent meetings will allow everyone to focus on their tasks and come together to discuss their progress.

2. Celebrate the small successes

Employee recognition can be one of the most powerful tools in your arsenal. One of the most common reasons why employees will move from one company to another is because they don’t feel seen or acknowledged. Celebrating the progress, you and your team have made can be a great way of showing your employees that everything they do matters.

In cases where the celebrations also include a reward scheme, you might find that your employees will improve their productivity so that they can access the rewards that come with a good performance.

3. Monitoring productivity

Monitoring productivity often gets a lot of negative attention, even though in reality it is a great tool for both employees and employers if used right. When monitoring productivity you will first want to focus on performance and task completion, more than looking at how many clicks per minute someone makes.

From there you can set reasonable thresholds and expectations that each employee can meet every month. This will give your employees something to strive for, and more importantly, it will give you a way of acknowledging their work every month.

4. Help them create a distraction-free space

With remote work, many people will be unable to turn off all of the distractions that surround them. As their employer, it will be up to you to help them create a workspace that allows them to put their best foot forward. But what exactly does this mean?

Online distractions, such as social media or scrolling through different websites can have a dire effect on employee productivity. To help with this you can use the Spyrix employee software. Spyrix is an easy-to-use monitoring tool that can be used to monitor how your employees spend their work hours.

For example, it can let you know how much time they have spent on social media, what websites your employees are visiting, as well as recording all of the actions that are being taken on a computer. The combination of all the analytics gathered can help clarify where your employees are spending their time and what distractions are causing a decline in their productivity. By then eliminating those distractions, you can help increase their productivity more naturally.

5. Wellness check-ins

Productivity is not only affected by distractions, but also by physical and emotional problems. Normally, if one of your employees all of a sudden experiences a sudden drop in their productivity it will likely be caused by circumstances in their personal life. While you should by no means be intrusive, you should try and determine what the best support system will be for that employee. Providing them with the help and support necessary will help them rebound and get back to their old productive self faster.

6. Create efficient solutions for communicating and managing documents

For your employees to be as productive as possible, you will need to have systems in place that allow them to manage all of their tasks without having to lose time. Having efficient systems will allow your employees to collaborate more easily, by sharing the information and files necessary within a few clicks. This is where file management software and cloud-based solutions can be particularly handy in improving productivity.

7. Set clear targets, objectives, and rewards

Most people thrive on knowing what tasks they need to complete and in what timeframe. Generally, setting good productivity targets and rewards for reaching them can help your employees have something to strive for. This will allow them to increase their productivity levels and will help them perform even better.

Conclusion

When it comes to increasing employee productivity there are a few different things you will need to remember. Having high productivity is all about having a company culture that promotes driven employees and provides them with opportunities to become even better. This is where a productivity monitoring tool can be incredibly useful as it can help you determine which ones of your employees are performing to the best of their abilities. With that information in hand, you can create objectives, and reward schemes and conduct wellness checks to ensure that everyone in your team will be as productive as can be.