Remote Workers

According to the report State of Remote Work 2019, the biggest and unique challenges that remote workers face include unplugging after work, loneliness, difficulties in communication and collaboration with their remote colleagues, distractions at home, time zone differences, and staying motivated. The goal of your Human Resources department, even if it also consists of freelancers, is to ensure the challenges your remote workers face are addressed appropriately, sometimes on a case by case basis, and what’s even more important, in a timely fashion. The satisfaction of your employees is directly related to their productivity, and as a result – to the success of your business. By 2020, it’s estimated that over half of the employees will work remotely, so understanding the challenges of remote work and ways of addressing them is as important as ever.  

Remote Workers

Addressing six core remote work challenges

Loneliness

Unfortunately, for some freelancers, remote work comes at a cost. Especially, if they worked in the office before becoming freelancers: they are accustomed to the office environment, direct face-to-face communication, regular staff meetings, daily lunches with co-workers, and so on. Abandoning office for work from home means being deprived of personal connections. As a result, remote work can suddenly feel lonely.

However, there’s something you, as an employer, or an HR representative, can do for your remote teams. Build a community around your remote workers, even if it’s also going to be online, set up a Slack channel, Discord, Facebook, or Whatsapp groups, where all people can participate, share their concerns, talk about something not related to work and their daily responsibilities.

We, at Soshace, found a way to reduce the disconnection between remote workers by organizing an online monthly book club meeting. Every month we choose a book to discuss, hop on a conference call and spend the whole hour pondering over existentialism, modernity, or something similar. You can either follow into our steps or use your own creativity to come up with an idea for your team’s regular meetings.

If anyone on your team happens to live in the same city, organize pizza or museum days, pub quiz night-outs, dance classes, work-out sessions, or picnic retreats. It doesn’t have to be on a weekly basis, but try to make those meetings regular.

Unplugging after work

Most of the freelancers I interviewed for the past year often mention that they work much more than they used to. Although the number of hours has not really changed (they still have to work for 8 hours), many of them notice that the quality of their work has improved, the number of tasks they perform during the day has increased dramatically, but at a cost of fewer breaks or skipping lunches entirely. Moreover, freelancers often complain that they have an extreme difficulty of unplugging after work and continue to perform their duties even though they no longer have to. Freelancers, like web developers, who are paid by the hour, sometimes tend to work extremely long hours either because of a pressing deadline or the need for money.

The solution we found for the struggle is completely unplugging ourselves: in case your co-worker calls or texts you, you don’t answer until the next working day (unless it’s something extremely urgent, which is very rare). This way your colleague is left with no choice but to switch off and wait for your reply. Do not contact your employees over the weekend, past working hours, or during their vacation. Allow your co-workers time to rest and have fun with their friends and families.

Collaboration/communication

Seventeen percent of remote workers complain about the lack of sufficient collaboration and communication with their colleagues. Pairing your employees will help address this issue tremendously. So, instead of just holding conference calls with a bunch of employees at once, we recommend pairing colleagues or breaking up large teams into micro-groups who will work together, support, and supervise each other on a daily basis. You can also set up random calls for your co-workers to get to know each other: each week an employee gets a call from a colleague with no set agenda, so they talk about whatever they want and get acquainted.

It’s extremely important to be mindful of time zones. If finding employees from the same time zone is not exactly feasible for your business, try to ensure that you and your co-worker have at least a few working hours where you are both available. Try to delay decision making until you hear from anyone on the team, this way you’ll show your employees that everyone’s involved in decision making and you value their input.

Distractions at home

Cats, babies, annoying neighbors can be a distraction. During your first interview with a potential candidate, ensure you inspect their surroundings and see if the room they use is suitable for remote work. Try to find out why they decided to work remotely and if they understood the challenges that come with freelancing. Give your employees tips on how to handle distraction, organize their day or working space. Invite your employees for a webinar with a time-management expert, where they’ll learn how to manage their time and space more effectively.

Motivation

Many remote workers struggle with motivation. Part of it comes with a lack of proper recognition of their achievements. Freelancers often complain that after sending in the completed assignment, they won’t hear back unless it was not completed properly or more work needs to be done. Make sure you recognize your employees’ successes just as well as you do their failures. Informal positive feedback is an integral part of keeping your employees happy and motivated. Moreover, point out in public when someone does a good job, so they feel valued and appreciated.

Another important part of the motivation is money. Reward your employees with monthly or yearly bonuses based on performance and the value they bring to the company.

Conclusion

Ensuring your remote workers feel connected, valued, and appreciated is important to keep your employee turnover to the minimum. Freelancers who feel the sense of belonging are emotionally healthier, more motivated, happier, and better able to cope with job stress and remote work challenges. What we’ve discussed above are a number of practical steps you can take to ensure everyone on your remote team is able to perform their jobs at their best. Above all, remember about work-life balance, adequate compensation, and public appreciation.