Allowing employees to work from home has always been a somewhat controversial subject, dependent on the company. But now, with stay at home orders for non-essential employees being in effect, companies that have never had a work from home policy in place, find their entire workforce being forced to stay at home. While this creates a number of challenges, one of the biggest is finding ways to keep your team motivated. That’s why we’ve compiled some tips to help you along with this transition and keep your team in good spirits.

Communication is KEY

Communication is really important at this time. Not being face to face or in the same building can make it hard for your team to be on the same page in terms of complex projects and other tasks with multiple moving parts. This communication lag could lead to frustration and even a drop in morale for your team.

To combat this, make sure you have open lines of communication for all of your employees. Holding bi-weekly or even weekly video meetings where your team can all get together to communicate important details and see each other’s faces will help remind employees that they’re part of a team.

If you’ve got the big meetings covered but want another option for minute-to-minute communication, we recommend messaging apps like Slack or GroupMe. Both have free options and make it easy for your team to quickly share updates on projects or other tasks they’re working on.  

Empower Your Team

Another downside to working at home can be a lack of
collaboration. Odds are, you’ve hired professionals for your business who are
good at their job and are more than just order takers. One way to remind them of
this is to give them some freedom in how they do their job. Asking for their
input and suggestions will make them feel important and thought of.

Keep Setting Goals

Lastly, it will help your employees to know what the company’s overall business goals are during this time. No one knows when they will be able to go back to the office and return to some semblance of normalcy. To alleviate this, try setting some goals for your team. Asking them to reach a sales goal by a certain deadline, or get all the collateral pieces for the next month done by a specific date are just two examples. Your team will see that you are still eager to make the best of the situation and are still working hard to achieve those goals. It will help people see the finish line and give them that extra push to stay on track that they needed.

Overall, this is uncharted territory for the global workforce, but having open lines of communication, setting goals and letting your team know you believe in them, will motivate them to continue to work hard for their business.

Looking for other ways to motivate your employees while working from home? Proforma has access to thousands of the best work from home accessories on the market, including wireless chargers, Bluetooth speakers, privacy webcam covers and more. Send us a quick message and we’ll see how we can help.