How Human Resources can do Remote Work more Effectively

Remote work is a mandatory mode of work now in the age of COVID-19! For some, there might be no change in their work routine. For others, it seems like the world is flipped upside down. No matter what, as a HR, we’re so used to managing people “at” work. But what happens when work does not have a location? In this blog, we look at ways to make remote work more efficient.

Motivating A Remote Team

Remote work could be more frustrating to people who are extroverts. A team full of extroverts would feel abandoned during these quarantined days. The best thing to the team could be a continuous communication helping them to forget the isolation. Motivating you these days could be the funny jokes we crack during the first ten minutes of the sync up call.

Try to get connected during these extra time we spend to revive ourselves!
Try recognising your productivity during these days. It actually encourages you to work beyond your capacity. At times this can be the better motivation.
Measure the industry’s advancements and the bandwidth you operate on. It can also allow you to excel further in terms of work.
Get the feedback to your immediate superiors to know the work you did in office premises and how far it has difference of speed being remote.
Looking at all the faces in the morning calls itself a motivation to us to kick-off the day well.

Setting Up Essential Tools

The tools helping you to remote work should be decided earlier. The day we decided to go remote we actually did a test call with everyone at the office. Everyone was made to go into different rooms and we “rehearsed” our communication. Our Program Manager then put together a list of tools that would be helpful for us during remote work.

Here’s some that we use. Of course, you can find the full list here.

Zoom - Entire team in a screen, a video suite for remote people
Hearapp - HearApp allows you to effortlessly run meetings with actionable items, automatic follow-ups and sign-offs.
Google Suite - Google Docs, Google Sheets and Google Slides (Do you need anything else? :P)
Slack - A great tool for company wide IM

Being Responsive

Try being responsive to the calls and messages you get in between the day’s work. If someone is lost, communicate with them and remind them how important it is to be online. Someone may need you for the dependencies at any time during the work. Be a reason to complete the task but never an interruption. Being away for sometime is your right, be informed and leave a message ensuring every other team member about this.

Being Prompt

Either online or offline, being prompt will help you in both ways. Try this one day and you’ll continue it like a habit! You’ll get a new zest when you initiate doing this. The habit of starting early is not only meant for the human resource professional. If you can be an example, people try doing this. Definitely, the energy will go low when we stay connected only online. The purpose of video calling is this - to see some energised faces in the morning. Wake up early like you do to be at the office on time, get freshed, dress up and spread fresh vibes.Be prompt to the calls and remind everyone to start the day. Try sending the call links and morning messages to all.

Engaging In Team Activities

Try enhancing the energy by playing some team building games like our childhood games which we have forgotten for ages. I am damn sure that we would again go back to our memories playing show and tell, Antakshari, Dumb sharades, hand cricket and figma pictionary. Of course, experiment this to see the team’s energy level striking the peak.

Break The Silence

Being silent will actually drag you down. Keep conversing in the internal discussion forums. Have some general topics to collaborate with the team and get to know something new from their side.

People Satisfaction

Maintaining people’s satisfaction is a challenge during remote work. Try using these before you experiment with new things. These are the proven ways.

Open up your ears. Keep listening to all. Don’t interrupt or share your views before knowing theirs.
Make people’s health the first priority.
Communicate often and be honest.
Recognise people’s achievements and celebrate together!
Set realistic vision to all.
Try hearing their new interests as a career option.
Let people be aware of the company goal and how responsible the team is in achieving it.

At last I hope this serves you its purpose being a guide during this pandemic. No course or degree can help you face real life scenarios, and I’m learning everyday too! The key success of this blog is managing a remote workforce and engaging them everyday. I hope this inspires you. Happy to hear your thoughts too! Write to us. :)

Up next

Maintaining Mental Health while Working Remote