What a crazy two-plus years we have endured! As we roll into 2023 a lot has changed with the way we work and interact with our managers, coworkers and teammates. Many companies have adopted a permanent work-from-home (WFH) strategy or, at minimum, a hybrid work strategy. A new study in Businesswire, “An Inside Look: What Today’s Candidates Really Want,” polled over 1,000 U.S.-based candidates. Twenty-nine percent listed WFH as one of their top two non-negotiable factors when considering a new job.1 Companies will need to adapt to this new model or risk losing or hiring talent.
WFH offers many benefits for the employee but can also cause the employee to feel out of the loop from general work discussions. It can also challenge managers to stay abreast of employee work and overall productivity. A recent survey reveals that a third of remote workers report decreased engagement—the commitment and connection that they feel to their work. The survey also finds that workers want to quit. Thirty-seven percent say their intent to stay has decreased in the last six months; however, the looming recession is impacting workers' final decisions.2 What should leaders and workers do? The unemployment rate is still low, with many in-demand jobs going unfilled. Leaders and workers must adapt to this new work environment. Many tools have been developed to improve the engagement gap as the WFH model continues to mature.
I have worked from home for over 20 years and have seen the good and bad aspects of the remote worker model. It is the responsibility of both the leaders and the workers to stay engaged.
Top 5 keys for employers and employees dealing with the Work from Home paradigm shift:
1. Communication
Communication is key in any work environment, but it is needed even more in a distributed work environment. Leaders need to make an effort to reach out to employees informally over Microsoft Teams or Zoom. When everyone was in the office it was routine to chitchat at the coffee maker or over lunch. You may not have realized it at the time, but a lot was being accomplished during those informal discussions. There is no more anxious feeling for a remote worker than getting a chat message from a manager you have not spoken with in weeks saying, “Do you have a minute?” Having regular interaction with leaders will minimize that anxious feeling and goes a long way towards improving the feeling of engagement for the WFH worker. Keeping open lines of communication is invaluable.
2. Expectations
A Gallup study found that employee engagement declines were especially evident in elements relating to clarity of expectations, materials and equipment, recognition, development and connection to the organization's mission or purpose.3 WFH workers can often lose sight of their organization’s strategic priorities, mission, and purpose, and business direction due to feeling isolated and removed from the day-to-day in-office activities. Organizational and leader communications will help, but WFH employees often still feel less engaged. Understanding how their contributions align with and augment the team, department, and organizational goals will improve employee engagement. Microsoft has understood these challenges and has developed a goal and task alignment tool to help mitigate these concerns. Microsoft Viva Goals applies the power of the objectives and key results (OKR) framework developed by Andrew Grove and John Doerr. OKRs have been adopted by large, distributed organizations like Microsoft, Twitter, Google and others with proven results. Viva Goals is a part of Microsoft Viva which has many features to improve the employee experience and empower teams to be their best from anywhere.
3. Meetings
Not everyone likes meetings, but they are even more important with a WFH workforce. Meetings can be useful in keeping the remote employee engaged with other team members and the organization as a whole. However, there are a few lessons learned, like what can change an unnecessary meeting into an engaging meeting that not only delivers on the topics but grows the WFH employee’s sense of overall engagement.
A majority of companies utilize Office 365 for their email and Office applications. Microsoft Teams, part of Microsoft Office 365, provides many elements that I highly recommend.
- Require video during all meetings for all participants. This simple action will put the onus on the WFH employee to stay engaged and not wander off or become distracted by other tasks.
- Utilize the polling function built into Microsoft Teams to solicit input from associates and keep them engaged in the meeting.
- Microsoft Whiteboard sharing enables associates to actively participate in the meeting, just like they were all in the same room.
- Utilize Teams storage and the real-time file collaboration that is built into Microsoft Office. This seems like a simple feature, but I have found many organizations do not utilize the functionality to its fullest.
The ultimate responsibility of staying engaged falls on the WFH employee. However, following some or all the items listed will help keep employees engaged and lead to better meetings with better outcomes.
4. Upskilling
One of the benefits of WFH is the ability to flex work time. Leaders will need to adjust to this practice. Studies have shown that in certain roles productivity increased by over 13% with actual working time increasing as well.4 WFH employees tend to work through a lunch hour or catch a quick bite before returning to work. The elimination of the commute to and from the office offers valuable work time flexibility. What does this increased productivity have to do with upskilling? Employers need to value increased productivity, and employees need to utilize this time to improve their skills. There are many free training sites available on the Internet. Microsoft has a catalog full of topics and skills learning paths at learn.microsoft.com. Having the time along with an uninterrupted work environment allows the WFH employee the flexibility to grow their current skills, learn new skills and ultimately be happier in their job and engaged with their employer.
5. Workspace
Now some advice for the worker: Working from the bedroom one day, and the living room couch the next can impact your feeling of “being at work” minimizing feelings of engagement. Having your own space away from the kids' playroom, living room couch or primary bedroom instills a feeling of “going to work.” Too many new WFH employees do not develop a daily routine including walking in and out of a defined office space. Find a room, preferably with a door, and designate this as your workspace. Minimize distractions and take breaks. At the end of the day, shut the door and leave your office. This provides a psychological effect of ending your workday. These recommendations are key to feeling engaged and maintaining a comfortable work-life balance.
Hybrid work and work-from-home environments are here to stay. Leaders will need to embrace these WFH ideas to separate themselves from other organizations and retain or entice the best employees. Maintaining an eye on employee engagement and continually fostering engagement will be important to retaining WFH employees. Employees need to adapt to these workplace changes, decide what works best for them, and make it their goal to stay engaged.
See how Experis can help with digital workspace.
1. Businesswire, “NEW STUDY: Better Salary and Benefits Trump Working From Home As Top Priorities for Job Seekers,” 2022
2. The Conference Board, “Survey: Job Engagement Declines For A Third of Workers; Remote Work Is Not to Blame,” 2022
3. Harter, “U.S. Employee Engagement Drops for First Year in a Decade,” 2022
4. Maatta, 15 Working From Home Productivity Statistcs in 2022, 2022
