Optimizing Remote Work: Ways To Keep Remote Workers Focused

You may trust your remote workers to stay focused on the job, but it’s always nice to help people along.

Remote work is definitely on the rise. There’s no way to reverse that trend, so employers must adapt.

Fighting or criticizing the revolution doesn’t help. The best thing to do is to keep remote workers focused on the job. The good thing is that there are steps you can take to make this a reality for your business.

Breaks are Vital

Keeping remote workers focused doesn’t mean they need to be glued to their screens. That hurts productivity and focus.

You want to schedule more breaks to ensure workers can finish their assignments effectively. You know that remote workers want a better work/life balance. Prioritize that, and they’ll appreciate it.

Schedule in family time, alone time, lunches, brunches, and a walk or exercise. Do this and you’ll see how focused your employees will be.

While it may feel odd to promote breaks, it gives remote workers structure.

Check-In Tools

It makes sense to take advantage of check-in tools. These tools can help you monitor your remote workers more effectively.

There are a number of tools, like an employee tracking system. Find one that works best for your employees.

Using tracking tools may seem off-putting to some employees, so make sure you are transparent about this.

Let workers know they can use tracking data to ask for promotions or verify paid time, so it’s not only for employers.

Try to Limit Meetings

Many employers are guilty of using online communication tools too much.

This may be done to keep employees engaged and focused, but this normally has the opposite effect.

While it’s good to update your employees regarding overall goals or updates for projects, it’s not good to schedule needless meetings.

This won’t sit well with your employees. These useless meetings will be a waste of time, and it’ll make employees feel like you’re wasting their time.

This can also hurt productivity and enthusiasm for the job.

Expecting the Right Amount

Some employers make the mistake of demanding more from employees than they should. This is especially true concerning remote workers.

Employers expect more because they know workers don’t have to commute to the office.

The problem is that there are many distractions at home, even if employees have a designated work area. Assigning a larger workload to keep employees engaged is a bad idea.

Studies show that productivity and focus suffers if remote workers are overworked.

What you need to do is scale things back a little, and be sure to assign the normal workload to each employee, nothing more.

Inject Some Motivation

Find ways to motivate employees, even if you aren’t there. You can do this in several ways.

You can gamify some of the assignments if not all of them. You can introduce little contests among your employees to spark competition from time to time.

You could also reward employees. A reward can be public recognition, but it could also be gift cards or maybe group gifts once projects are complete.

Showing gratitude makes a difference, and it motivates employees to be better and more focused. Just make sure you offer quality gifts to your workers.

Show Appreciation Often

This was alluded to earlier, but it’s important to mention it again. You have to show appreciation.

Showing gratitude or appreciation should help improve engagement and focus among employees because it shows them that you care.

When you care for your employees, they can’t help but care about you and your business. This also promotes loyalty and employee retention. Being good to employees isn’t hard to do.

You can do things like offer rewards, which was mentioned earlier, but you could also listen to their concerns and address them. You could be flexible with their schedules when they ask for free time.

The more you address their concerns and make them feel like they matter, the more productive they’ll be.

Now, you know what you can do to ensure focus among your remote workers. It’s possible to achieve this. All it takes is a few adjustments.

Philip Piletic

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