A well engaged and socially connected team of employees is always more positive and productive for the company. The need for employee engagement is even higher in case of the company using any model of remote employment. Companies tend to outsource and outstaff more because it gives them access to the global talent pool and saves a lot of money. For example, a remote iOS developer for hire can be the only solution when hiring a local one is just too expensive.
Meanwhile, more than 87% of the employees across the world are not well-engaged at work, as per Survey Crest research information. Let’s get started with the major models of remote hiring and how to measure employee engagement in those models. Finally, we will discuss the top 10 tips on employee engagement activities.
Employee Engagement in Different Remote Employee Hiring Models
The flexibility, cohesion, and the employee engagement develop a substantial amount of employee happiness in the local as well as remote employees. According to the latest employee satisfaction survey conducted by Edison College suggests that the detailed information about the organization’s mission, collaboration within the teams, and good work environment are the top 3 factors for employee satisfaction.
In the present human resource (HR) marketplace, the companies with the highest employee satisfaction rate normally use multiple models of HR hiring and employee engagement ideas. The main hiring models commonly used in the present day marketplace include:
#1 On-Premises Hiring
The on-premises hiring model is a traditional way of hiring in which the employees from the local, as well as the international market, is hired to work on the premises of the company. This mode of hiring is very costly and also governed by numerous legal and industry compliance issues. However, it is much easier to maintain employee satisfaction through the traditional ways of employee engagement. You can create your own company culture through interactive collaboration, effective communication, and incentivizing the appreciable work.
In this form of hiring, communication and interaction are very effective due to the physical presence of the employees at one place. Thus, it is much easier to engage the employees in numerous activities related to entertainment, collaboration, cohesiveness, and other activities to improve team collaboration and consequently employee satisfaction.
#2 Remote Outstaffing
In this model of hiring, the remote employees are hired dedicatedly to work on the specific company projects with a full focus on that particular project. In this type of hiring, the remote employers enjoy full control over the remote virtual team. The remote team hired through outstaffing model can be engaged through multiple activities like virtual gaming, offering employee award ideas, bonuses, holiday coupons, and other incentives.
#3 Nearshore Hiring
This is a form of outsourcing in which remote teams are hired from the areas and countries near to the headquarters of the company. Most of the remote hiring is highly influenced by social media platforms like LinkedIn, Facebook, and others. The occasional face-to-face meetings, employee engagement, and employee satisfaction are the main objectives of this hiring. No doubt, the hiring cost is at the top of the list.
#4 Offshore Hiring
An offshore hiring is a type of remote hiring, in which a team of remote developers and specialists is hired from multiple remote locations to form a virtual team. In this form of hiring, the engagement of employees is comparatively difficult owing to communication, cultural and time-zone barriers. The text communication has become more effective in engaging with the prospective candidates for employment in the modern HR marketplace.
A few important employee engagement activities may include running of different employee award categories associated with the financial incentives, and virtual collaborative meetings. Professional grade employee management software plays a vital role in not only managing the remote employees but also engaging the employees more effectively.
How to Improve Employee Engagement and Productivity?
The employee engagement at work is directly associated with employee productivity. But, this important fact is still in the books not translated into the real world significantly. According to the Gallup Research, the average ratio of global and USA employee engagement is 13% and 33% respectively.
Let’s have a look at the major points on how to improve employee engagement.
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Provide detailed information about the organization’s objectives, goals, and mission clearly
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Clearly define the objectives, roles, and responsibility of an employee to contribute to the company goals
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Every contribution should be properly measured and awarded to improve employee engagement and productivity
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High achievers should be awarded public appreciation, rewards, and applause
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Communication should be transparent and clear
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Equal opportunities should be provided to every employee
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No grudges or conflicts should be allowed to develop and soar up
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Extra work activities should be organized to offer space for relaxation and social engagement
Top 10 Tips on Employee Engagement and Productivity
The employee engagement can be achieved by applying both the personal motivation and team collaboration. Personal motivation makes your life easier and productive at work, while the collective approach of collaboration and cohesiveness improves the overall company productivity.
Let’s have a look at the top 10 useful tips on improving employee engagement.
#1 Know Your Employee
Knowing your employee is the first step to set the right track for employee engagement. It is always a great idea to understand the motives and ideas of an employee regarding his/her work. Try to find out the dreams and plans for the future life of your employee. Make a strategy to address the interests and objective of your employee for keeping him engaged in his work assignments and company interests.
#2 Provide Detailed Company Information
If you restrict an employee to his/her task, you are making a big mistake. You should always take your employees on board by introducing every aspect of the goals, mission, vision, and objectives of the company. This creates a good feeling about the company in employees, and they keep them motivated to achieve the desired goals. The detailed information about the company also creates a sense of ownership, which keeps the employees engaged and motivated.
#3 Offer Flexibility
Every human being has different issues, lifestyle, and ways of doing work. It is always a great idea to provide certain flexibility in terms of time and the ways it performs certain tasks. That flexibility creates a good feeling in employees and subsequently improves the productivity of the employees. The flexibility with responsibility generates good results in terms of employee performance and quality of work.
#4 Transparent Performance Assessment
Transparency in the performance assessment is one of the very important factors to keep the employee engaged. While measuring employee productivity and performance, follow the transparent approach based on equality and merit. This increases the positive competitiveness rather than negative grudges and bitterness, which are very detrimental to the efficiency of a project or a company. No personal favoritism should be allowed to influence the transparency of assessment procedures at all.
#5 Appreciation Awards
The best performers should always be rewarded with different kinds of awards like employee of the month award, top performer of the quarter, and others. These awards should be bestowed in public so that the winner feels great and appreciated. This improves the energy of the winner and inspires the other employees to work hard to win the similar kind of award and appreciation in the next turn.
#6 Authority & Accountability
It is always a great tip to empower the employees with the clear process of accountability to keep him engaged and productive. The empowerment helps the employees stretch their extremes by introducing new and out-of-the-box ideas. There should be a clear process of tracking the responsibility while taking major decisions in the workflow. There should be no ambiguity in the decision making to trigger a blame game. Every employee should be authorized to make decisions based on multiple options to reach the goal of the project, assign, or task.
#7 Encourage Competence
Always help your employees improve their competence through career advancements, pieces of training, and other sources. The improved competence keeps your employees more connected with the company and their colleagues. A competent employee always improves the competence of other employees through knowledge sharing.
#8 Communicate, Communicate & Communicate
Whether you have a remote team, virtual team or even a local team of employees, you need to communicate with your team frequently, openly and transparently. The effective communication increases not only the team performance but also reduces the conflicts and diversion of the project direction. So, always communicate with employees frequently, openly, and eloquently.
#9 Inspire Employees to Challenge Themselves
Always give importance to the employees and inspire them to challenge their own capabilities to reach new heights. Set tougher, but reasonable targets to challenge the extremes of the employees. Always try to encourage and help them achieve the tougher targets.
#10 Picnic & Outdoor Activities
After a few weeks, it is a great idea to take a break altogether on a picnic resort or a beach. This will improve the team collaboration and synergy at work. An outdoor game event is good for improving friendship and cohesion within the company employees. So, always have a break and enjoy the outdoor activities with the whole team.
Final Takeaways
After having discussed the different aspects of employee engagement, we conclude that:
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Employee engagement plays a critical role in the productivity of a company
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On-premises teams are easy to motivate as compared to remote hiring
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The main types of remote hiring include outstaffing, nearshoring, offshoring, and others
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Major points for remote team hiring elaborated explicitly
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Top 10 tips on the better engagement of the team explained
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