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The Great Employee Engagement Divide – Engaging Frontline Workers – Jill Christensen

This snippet is part of our Ebook The great Employee Engagement Divide – Engaging Frontline Workers. Advice and suggestions from our Top 101 influencers. You can download the full eBook with all the advice here.

Jill Christensen, Author, Speaker, Jill Christensen International

Employees are telling us that three things are lacking, now that so many employees are working remotely: Communication, Connection, and Collaboration. Therefore, it’s up to managers to bridge the gap and bring these things to life for employees, so they re-engage or stay engaged. The easiest way for managers to do this is to commit to doing several of these actions each week:

Connection

Pair people up in twos – create a Buddy/Support System for every remote worker.
Conduct a Troop Tour, where employees lead a video tour of their home workspace. Include a Show & Tell portion, so employees can share something in their home office and talk about its meaning.
Create a Team Goal that remote employees are responsible for working on – and achieving – together.
Host a monthly Recognition Roundtable video conference, where everyone acknowledges someone on the team. (Note: Some companies mail a gift to employees for this event, such as balloons, gift card for lunch).
Host Role & Soul, where employees explain their role and what they love about it.

Communication

Lead a 5-10 minute daily or weekly Team Huddle in the a.m. or p.m. Consider starting with recognition.
Lead weekly One-on-Ones and begin with the question, “How can I help you now that we are remote?”
Rotate leadership of Staff Meetings, so employees feel trusted and communicate more than the manager.
Set up a dedicated Email Box for remote workers to provide feedback/recommend ideas as to how to improve the remote worker experience.
Conduct a Focus Group and gather employee input before a decision is made which impacts team members. When you announce the decision, begin with the words, “You spoke, I listened.”

Collaboration

Delegate a Major Project to several remote workers to lead, rather than leading it yourself.
Invest in state-of-the-art Online Collaboration Tools.
Ask team members to create a Team Charter that outlines the team’s purpose, goals, and roles members are expected to play in order to achieve the goals.
Host a monthly Team Innovations Meeting where people present ideas. Team members then vote and collaborate on how to put the best monthly idea into action.
Reward Collaboration. Recognize people who collaborate and more employees will start doing it.