Motivating Remote Workers – Part 3

Motivating Remote or Virtual Workers is Challenging

Keeping Remote Workers productive and happy is hard. If you want a slightly contrarian view of how to do so, read on!

This post discusses how to ethically motivate staff that don’t work at your main location. Part 1 discussed How to Manage Remote Workers, and Part 2 discussed Hiring Remote Workers.

Let’s Start with What Non-local Staff Say They Want

I have worked remotely for dozens of clients through the years. As a single data point, I will list the reasons I personally have enjoyed working remotely.

1.  Flexible Schedule that includes being able to spend time with family (see graph below).

2.  Reduce Travel and Commute time that is mostly a waste and not enjoyable.

3.  Be able to concentrate on research, coding, or writing that minimizes interruptions.

But, instead of working through advice based on anecdotal evidence, let’s go right to the people!

The first two categories I put to good use by coaching my son’s sports teams, five sports over about five years. I was able to knock off 2 days a week at 3:30, almost every week to coach. This was valuable to me. I did give up at least hundreds of thousands of dollars of income, perhaps millions, by doing so. It was very worth it and I would do it again. This proves that at least my strongest motivation is not money. Now, with my motivation and the above chart in mind, let’s explore some ways to motivate staff that are not usually mentioned.

4 Effective Ways to Motivate Remote Staff

1.  Get to know them. This is the most powerful way to deal with your remote staff. Only when you know them are you able to make educated guesses about what will motivate them in terms of what type and how much communication and what recognition and tangible rewards they would like most.

Warning: Demotivating Story:
When I worked for a major oil company as a technical analyst, basically a Business Analyst, I stumbled on a way to save over million dollars a year (Yes I had some help.) My manager could have been the model for Dilbert’s Pointy Haired Boss. He came to my desk one day and said, “Here are 2 movie tickets (value ~$12.00 total) for your work on the cost savings project.” The effect this had was to make me want to quit immediately. He could have done ten other recognition types of things that would have worked better. What I did was the math, which to me at 21 came out to my value to the firm and was 12/1,000,000… Totally demotivating. He would have been way ahead to do nothing.

2.  Meet your staff face to face as often as possible. If at all possible, have them travel to you to meet you and your local co-workers, and see your culture in practice. Shoot for quarterly or at least a time or two for special meetings. Make sure to concentrate on them as much as you can during the rare face-to-face meetings.

3.  Empower them. Make sure you tell them what you need, but not micromanage how they do it. One good way is to have a weekly 50-minute one-on-one where you split the time between the two of you. This should be only somewhat directive and mostly coaching. Ask what steps they are taking and how long each one takes. This gives two benefits: 1) Ensures they are tracking to the right steps, you can coach them and 2) Ensures you know what they are doing and how much work it really is. The latter helps ensure reasonable expectations on your part.

4.  Do personal and special things for them. Ask for family or other types of pictures or stories to put on a team site (if they are comfortable with that). Find out what their hobbies are or likes are and see if they want to share with the group or need help with anything. Have some small things delivered to them that they might like such as specialty foods, consumables that would help them in their work, or just a gift that you have really put some thought in to. Stay away from gift cards, money, or fruit/gift baskets even if they specifically mention they like those. They will forget about them or think you did not take the time to think about what they would really like.

Some gifts we have had good luck with are subscriptions to Audio Books, Coffee, Tea, Cheese, Beer, Wine, or other special drink or food you know they like. Travel drinkware etched with their name seems to go over well too! My friends own a local etching firm and they can do wonders https://perfectetch.com. They can do a 1 off item or a large corporate swag order.

Motivating Remote Employees – Your Thoughts?

Thoughts on how you can best motivate remote workers that we did not touch on? Good luck and keep your eye out for ways to improve, guide, and enjoy your remote people!

Your path to business success.