As remote work becomes more and more prevalent in our world, it’s important to be sure you’re keeping your employees happy with their work. Remote workers can often feel like they are on an island without any human contact.

As a manager or business leader, you must ensure you have your hands full when it comes down to motivation. Why? Because we are humans. We need the motivation to complete tasks and be productive daily. Luckily enough, there are plenty of ways to motivate your team members while they are working remotely.

Of course, these methods and tips might as well work for organisations with non-remote teams, but let’s talk about those who do not have the luxury of sharing meals and daily chit-chats at the office.

1. Create a culture of transparency and communication

Even though your workforce is remote, make sure you’re keeping them in the loop with what’s going on at work. Share the company goals and objectives with everyone so people know where they stand when it comes to their role.

Constant communication can be pretty difficult, but there are plenty of tools out there that will help you achieve your goal.

When these tools are used strategically while creating a system for information exchange, you’ll see how much this method can boost productivity while fostering a sense of teamwork.

2. Put together an employee satisfaction survey and ask for feedback often

While it can be tricky to get employees to give feedback, you shouldn’t shy away from the task. Create a survey and ask those remote workers for their honest opinion. You’ll be surprised at how much you can learn about your team with just a few questions.

Giving your team the opportunity to feedback on your managerial responsibilities will let you see areas you can make improvements to keep everyone happy.

3. Encourage creativity with flexible working hours

One thing you can do is offer more flexible working hours for those who want to spend time with their family or pursue other hobbies. This will encourage them to be more passionate about their work while not neglecting other important areas of their life.

Of course, this has to be agreed upon with the team members in advance to ensure they put in the best amount of time into work, so it’s a good idea to talk with them before giving those flexible working hours a chance.

4. Send out a weekly company newsletter

Virtual office teams get way less information about the “goings-on” within the organisation than when they are present in the office. You can send out a weekly or monthly internal newsletter to keep everyone in the company informed.

This keeps your team from missing out on the latest news and encourages them to be more active when it comes to sharing what they have been working on that week.

It doesn’t have to be all formal, feel free to add some fun to it sometimes.

5. Hold team-building activities regularly

Another thing you can do is get everyone together virtually regularly. It could be monthly happy hours, weekly social calls, or midweek lunch hours where everyone eats together in front of their webcam.

When it comes to team building activities, make sure they are planned for every month or week and involve the whole team.

6. Invest in a good chat tool

Investing in a good chat app solution will help you keep your team on track with their projects, tasks, and deadlines.

This works wonders for keeping those virtual workers motivated because of how easy it can get in touch with their colleagues even when they aren’t at the office anymore.

7. Create a team-wide goal that everyone is working towards

The next thing you should do is set goals that the entire company or team can work towards. Then, make sure everyone knows their role in achieving the goals.

In addition to setting up goals for your staff, it’s your job as a manager to provide them with the tools they need to achieve those goals.

It is also important to let workers know how their role contributes to those goals so they feel important and motivated.

8. Encourage team members to share their ideas and thoughts

If you’re looking for ways to keep your team motivated, you can let them share their ideas, even if they are not the best ideas.

When people share their ideas, they’ll stay personally motivated to bring them to fruition.

If you feel like an idea isn’t that great, but someone on your staff thinks otherwise and wants to pursue it, encourage the person.

You will be surprised at how many great ideas your team members will contribute and how those ideas can help move the business forward even if it is little.

9. Provide regular feedback on team members’ work

Don’t forget about the importance of giving individual feedback when it comes to motivating your virtual team.

Setting up regular one-on-one calls with each member of your team could help you keep track of their progress and give them personalised experiences that will motivate them further in their work.

10. Encourage your remote employees to set up an office space

One of the perks of working remotely is that you get to customise your place of work.

Encouraging your team members to set up a productive and exciting workspace at home can help give them a sense of “the office culture” while making them feel like they are a part of the team.

11. Have regular team update meetings

Have regular meetings where you present company updates and project progress reports and ask for feedback from your team members on how things are going.

12. Celebrate milestones together

The final thing you can do is celebrate milestones. It’s a great way to get people excited about what they have accomplished.

For example, for smaller projects, you can just hold little celebrations right after the conclusion of that project and then move on to something else.

For larger projects, you can hold larger celebrations where the rest of the company is invited to join in.

13. Make work easy with the right tools

By deploying present-day technologies that can streamline business processes and automate manual tasks, you’re basically giving employees’ time back to them to work on more value-added tasks they enjoy.

This not only improves staff productivity but also allows your business to move more quickly.

With the right tools, anything is possible: projects can be completed on time, revenue can go up, staff can stay longer at the job, customers can be served better, fraud can be prevented, and data errors can become a thing of the past.

A perfect example is using a tool like NetSuite—the industry’s most powerful cloud-based ERP software — to streamline every part of your company’s financials, sales, inventory, customer relationship, eCommerce, and what have you.

Another great example is using  SunSystems—a trusted standalone financial management system—to give your finance team the push they need to be efficient, accurate, and effective in every aspect of your organisation’s financial operations.

Conclusion

No matter how you do it, make sure to keep your team motivated.

Good employee morale is worth it in the end because it can lead to increased efficiency and productivity for the company and ultimately increased revenue.

Remember to check out our financial accounting solutions from SunSystems or our business management and ERP solutions from NetSuite to get your team on the right track. Get in touch with us!