How To Keep Your Team Motivated When Working Remotely Feels Never-Ending
Anyone else missing the conference table?
We miss not only the collaboration of being face to face with our coworkers, but also the exchange of experience and ideas with others in our industry, at conferences and meetups. After a seemingly endless and open-ended period of working from home, it can be hard enough to keep up your own motivation, much less your team’s. One study cited in the Harvard Business Review comparing working from home versus the office concluded: “we found that working from home was less motivating. Even worse, when people had no choice in where they worked, the differences were enormous. Total motivation dropped 17 points, the equivalent of moving from one of the best to one of the most miserable cultures in their industries.”
We found that working from home was less motivating. Even worse, when people had no choice in where they worked, the differences were enormous.
-HBR
The challenges of working from home can be especially difficult for small business teams and their manager, who are often owners struggling with their own stress. Switching hats between owner and manager can be extra-difficult when you’re also juggling shifting home life roles. We put together some tips on how to keep your team positive and engaged for the long term, while working remotely.
1. Trust your team
Trust your team to get their work done on their own schedule. Allow them the flexibility to work in a way that maximizes productivity while allowing for the realities of life. For example, many parents with children learning from home have shifted their work schedules later in the day and into the evening to have time in the mornings to help children with remote learning.
2. Guide the conversation
Be sure to always have a clear agenda for team video conferences. Don’t let fatigue set in - make sure everyone continues to adhere to a no-distraction protocol. That means no checking phones or other screens while in a meeting. Invite everyone to comment so that everyone is contributing regularly.
3. Check in regularly
Be sure to keep up with regularly scheduled one-on-one meetings with your team members. Watch out for signs that they’re struggling, like not always responding to emails or not contributing during team meetings.
4. Establish measurable targets and goals
Help your team members to focus and prioritize by setting short, medium and long term goals with measurable milestones.
5. Continue to encourage big-picture thinking
Don’t get trapped in the day-to-day tactics of to-do lists. Obviously daily task are great, but also remember to make sure everyone (managers included!) has time in their day to be more thoughtful and to think strategically. This could be a time in the morning when each team member reads and shares ideas, or time reserved for blogging or product development.
6. Encourage down-time
Be realistic about everyone’s need for work/life balance. Nobody wants to be or work with a burned-out team member who has lost interest in work, or is too stressed out to focus.
7. Use a tracking system
Project management tools such as Asana and Jira are more than just ways to manage tasks and deadlines. They are a great way to track milestones and goals. Plus, they help to facilitate communication in a way that’s collaborative and can reduce the need for emails, calls and video.
And remember that it’s important for managers to keep themselves motivated too. Keep 3-year, 1-year, and 90-day goals top of mind at all times. Its easy to fall into a pattern of working on urgent issues only, so making time to work on important but not urgent items that help you achieve your medium and long term goals increases the amount of fulfilling work you do on a daily basis. As one executive told us, “Knowing there is more interesting work in your backlog while you are fighting fires helps me stay motivated to get through them and back onto the good stuff.”