Remote work challenges and our counter measures

The Covid-19 pandemic has forced many companies to shift to remote work and after several weeks of isolation, more and more issues come to light. When working from home, some people seem to have more difficulties delivering the same levels of productivity than others.

Here is some internal data on how Covid-19 changed employees’ intrinsic motivation.

So how can we ensure that productivity doesn’t take a dip when we are not in the office.

It’s not only a very rough time for everyone individually but it will also be a game changer for businesses. The way we work now, will have a tremendous impact on businesses in the near future. We have to adapt to the changed environment and come up with new solutions to this unprecedented situation.

I know this, because I experienced it all first hand. 

I was transferred to a new business department on April 1. From the first day on, everything was remote: Meeting my new manager and co-workers for the first time, receiving training and the whole onboarding procedures. 

I had a very challenging first day. 

I was confused. I was struggling.

But now, after a few weeks, I feel much more comfortable.

What happened?

I will tell you.

Our company has introduced several new measures to make the shift to remote work as easy as possible. We started with a simple survey and asked every employee in the company what their biggest challenges with remote work were.

Let me share the results with you.

Top 3 Remote Work Challenges

1. Social Interaction - 36%

   1. Isolation, Loneliness

   2. Hard to reach out to people

   3. Lack of positive pressure from the office environment

   4. Information sharing went down

2. Communication - 27%

   1. Training and onboarding of new starters

   2. Miscommunications due to mainly written communication

   3. Time-consuming to communicate

   4. Lack of timely responses

   5. Hard to collaborate

3. Overtime - 22%

   1. Working longer hours

   2. Losing track of time

   3. Hard to unplug

As you can see from the data above, the main issue is the lack of “Social Interaction”. People feel isolated or even lonely and this has detrimental effects on their motivation. “Communication” was another major challenge because miscommunications and longer response times lead to lower productivity.

So how did we tackle these issues?

Here are a few of the measures and tools we introduced recently.

Virtual Office

We created a virtual office with a tool called Pragli. Every team has its own channel where they can chat, talk and video call with each other whenever they want. Everyone usually hangs around in their team channel and whenever a question comes up, you can unmute yourself and start talking. 

Also, if you need to discuss a matter with someone from a different team, you can just enter their channel and start a conversation. Just like walking over to another team’s desk.

Celebration Fridays

Every Friday afternoon, the whole company comes together for a huge video call where we share our wins of the week. This is usually celebrated with a few cold beverages and followed by some fun activities like quizzes or games. Go into the weekend on a positive note!

Virtual Lunch Rooms

We have an open Zoom meeting during lunch time. Everyone who eats at home and wants some company can join and enjoy lunch together.

Communication via Slack Calls

It is highly encouraged to call your team members on Slack instead of messaging them. This will speed up communication, minimize miscommunication and will provide some of that small talk we didn’t know we missed that much.

Check out this article about Attuned’s original Motivator Icons for Slack.

Online Team Meetings

Every morning we come together in our teams and share what we are focusing on that day. This way we make sure, everyone is on the same page.

The above measures mainly tackle issues regarding “Social Interaction” and “Communication”, but there are other factors that negatively impact people’s motivation as well. 

Here at Attuned, we use our own tool to measure what factors motivate each employee. This data is then individually used to keep everyone’s motivation high.

For example, if someone scores high on “Feedback”, motivation will go down if that person receives less feedback. In this case, it’s the manager’s job to actively communicate with the employee and give enough feedback to maintain a high level of motivation and thus a high level of productivity. Especially when working remotely, this needs some extra effort from the manager. But the employee can help as well by actively asking for feedback.

Another example would be “Security”. If someone has a high need for “Security”, it means that processes and work flows must be clearly defined and monitored properly. This gets tough in a remote work environment because communication patterns change and instructions may not be as clear. That’s why the manager needs to monitor and clearly communicate all the steps of a task and give advice when someone is stuck.

By uncovering what motivates an employee, you know in what kind of environment someone will strive. Understanding this is key to properly communicating with each of your team members individually and make sure everyone is and stays motivated.

If you would like to read more about remote work and productivity, here are 5 tips.

Stay safe, home and motivated!

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