How You Can Improve Employee Engagement in Remote Environment

When my sister and I took over our family’s engineering firm in 2016, I knew we’d face our fair share of challenges.

To start, neither of us has an engineering degree, and we work in a field where women hold less than 20%Opens a new window of civil engineering jobs, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, despite comprising nearly half of the U.S. workforce. As Black women, we also face additional challenges. The reality is I’m part of the 4% of women of color in C-suite leadership. 

I know firsthand how important it is to find an engaging work environment where you can come as your authentic self, and everyone has the opportunity to share their unique perspectives, skills, and expertise. I also know how critical it is to cultivate and maintain that environment as a leader.

In the remote work landscape, business leaders must find new ways to foster collaborative workplaces that keep our employees engaged and productive. In my experience, that starts with combining a people-centric mentality with digital tools that level the playing field for all employees. 

Employee Engagement: What Does It Look Like to You? 

As hybrid work continues, along with new challenges around mental health, burnout, and employee turnout, it’s important to consider what engagement looks like. Who’s stuck in the gaps, and who’s being left out completely? How can our leadership team and I ensure all employees are engaged and empowered?

Recent research underscores how crucial employee engagement is to running a successful business. Highly engaged teams achieve greater profitability and productivity. Organizations with engaged workers see lower rates of turnover and absenteeism. And employees who feel their voices are heard are nearly five times more likely to do their best work. 

However, as the world switched to remote work, employee engagement dropped last year for the first time in more than a decade; we experienced this ourselves at DB Sterlin. Gallup pollsOpens a new window found just one-third of employees were engaged last year, and 16% were actively disengaged in their work and workplace. 

Faced with these unique challenges, decision-makers have found new and creative ways to foster engagement and collaboration in the remote environment, whether it’s creating processes for continuous feedback or implementing improved talent management platforms. 

See More: 40% Employees Who Quit Are Unhappy in Their New JobsOpens a new window

While that answer may look different for every business, here are a few lessons on leadership that have helped me guide my company through the ups and downs of remote work: 

1. Put people first

In the early days of the pandemic, I remember driving around Chicagoland to deliver laptops and food to our employees. At that time, it was about more than business or our jobs. It was about ensuring our employees felt and saw how much we cared about their well-being. 

We should continue those practices in the hybrid work environment by focusing on and soliciting feedback from employees and listening to their needs, and then taking direct, tangible steps to ensure they feel valued in our organizations. 

Our company has relied on a talent management platform that supports everything from employee-to-employee communication to performance reviews, enabling us to engage with our employees across virtual environments seamlessly. We used this system to drive productive feedback. For example, one employee expressed that he was feeling disengaged from other employees and made it a goal to reach out to somebody he didn’t know in our company each week. 

By opening up opportunities like this for engagement, you create and sustain a supportive environment for all of your employees. That’s especially important given the mental health concerns and record levels of employee burnout we currently face. According to Mind Share PartnersOpens a new window , 76% of employees report at least one symptom of a mental health condition, and many have left a job due to mental health reasons. 

2. Use technology to fill gaps 

Digital collaboration tools have become a necessity for effective hybrid work, sustaining productivity over the past two years and enabling future innovation. As we’ve all seen firsthand, the use of collaboration technology has increased by 44% since the pandemic startedOpens a new window , according to Gartner.

At our firm, we used human capital management tools to foster engagement and boost learning and development efforts long before COVID-19. But these digital solutions proved vital during the crisis and enabled our firm to stay engaged with our distributed workforce and create a culture of continuous feedback. 

In particular, we benefited from a comprehensive technology suite that seamlessly connects to our IT system. This solution provided a familiar user interface for our employees when we first switched from paper to digital processes. Instead of struggling to learn a new system, our employees quickly saw the value of digital HR processes that bridged remote work gaps and drove ongoing improvements without disrupting day-to-day work.

Find the digital solutions that work best for your organization and its needs; as we’ve learned, the right tools go a long way toward improving employee retention and engagement.

3. Be ready to pivot

COVID-19 upended almost all organizations’ plans several times over. But instead of pushing back against change, our firm adapted to find the opportunities in these disruptions.  

When we first transitioned to remote work and opportunities for face-to-face meetings dwindled, we switched to a continuous feedback system that allowed employees to connect with their supervisors on a quarterly basis to review accomplishments, identify areas for improvement, and enable continuous goal management. We coupled these tools with new employee succession plans and career ladders to provide a clear path for career development and advancement, which can continue whether we are working remotely or back in the office.

Whether you’re looking to return to in-person work or facing other changes within your workforce, focus on finding opportunities like these for improvement and innovation. You can build resilience into your workplace by implementing flexible, agile digital processes that ensure collaboration and engagement don’t fall short, even when plans change (and then change again). 

People are the heart of our businesses. When they are left out of the workplace, whether it’s remote, in the office, or some combination of both, it’s bad not just for employees but also for business: Disengaged employees cost U.S. businesses billions of dollars every year. 

And it’s not their fault. Remote work has posed many challenges to employee engagement and happiness, but it’s also given leaders newfound urgency to cultivate open communication, continuous feedback, and a culture that values everyone’s experience and expertise. By embracing change and the right digital tools for your organization, you can help your teams determine what works best for them here and now. 

How has your company combined tech and a people-first culture to increase engagement and collaboration? Let us know on FacebookOpens a new window , TwitterOpens a new window , and LinkedInOpens a new window . 

MORE ON EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT

• The Great Resignation: Retaining a Contingent Workforce in a Tight Talent MarketOpens a new window
• The Role of OKR Software in Engaging and Retaining EmployeesOpens a new window
• 3 Benefits a Successful Employee Feedback Management Program Should Bring to Your OrganizationOpens a new window
• AI Virtual Assistants in HR: Opening the Door for Employee EngagementOpens a new window