Top Remote Work Challenges & How to Overcome Them

The arrival of COVID-19 caught most businesses off-guard, without allowing them to gauge remote work readiness of employees and devise a strategy on it. Working remotely has been an abrupt change for most. Still, most organizations are working on flexible strategies to counter the challenges of working remotely and increasing the productivity of remote workers. A significant step for organizations would be to pause and collectively understand their effectiveness in dealing with this sudden change.

The transition to remote work has been both life-altering and a revelation. Employees, across all levels, are facing challenges. However, leaders and managers are faced with challenges of managing remote employees, ensuring their productivity, and the larger team’s productivity while maintaining realistic expectations. On the other hand, employees are faced with multiple distractions at home and the expectation of quickly adapting to the new way of working. Here are some of the challenges confronted by managers and employees:

Seamless communication is the first to suffer as employees retract to their homes. Words often lose meaning without body language, expressions, gestures, and cadence – features that are part of face-to-face conversations. Add to that the complexity of email, texts, chats, and other ways digitization that enables relaying a message, with individual preference, there are higher chances of miscommunication. 

Miscommunication often hinders collaboration – an attribute on which organizations rely heavily to get the work done. Walking up to people’s desks is not the same as connecting with them over a call/email. Collaboration is a two-way street, and employees and managers alike need to work towards it to proactively drive maximum outcomes.

The lack of face-to-face interaction can often lead to misdirection. Managers may feel that the productivity of remote workers is diminishing in the absence of an office environment and added distractions at home. Employees might have to grapple with reduced access to managerial support, making them feel disconnected and discouraged. The need for appreciation, reassurance, and validation in remote working employees, is higher due to the absence of being able to talk to their managers and read their body language. There is a heightened need for those elements because most employees are managing multiple responsibilities and trying their best to perform at their maximum productivity. Thus, managers need to maintain a delicate balance between giving optimal directions and resisting the urge to micromanage.

To know more, read Balancing Economics with Empathy: A Guide for Organizations to Help Employees Cope with Social Isolation

Social interaction is indispensable to our growth and development and helps us to stay connected. The lack of social interaction can lead to an uneven sense of belongingness, decreased levels of happiness, motivation, and even productivity, in some cases.

With the sudden onset of remote work and implications of social distancing, remote working from home has posed additional challenges of managing household chores and/or parenting responsibilities or just an individual’s ability to avoid procrastinating about work without direct supervision or monitoring. Distractions can impact the productivity of remote workers, but that is not to say that distractions only occur while working away from the office.

Systems fail, internet connections get disrupted — technology isn’t always reliable. Disruptions like these can lead to annoyance, but they are only temporary. The challenges of working remotely include being affected by different situations, one of which is a technical glitch.

How to Overcome the Challenges of Managing Remote Employees?

Leaders and managers play a significant role in mitigating these challenges. Managing remote teams is not the usual practice for most managers, so they might often find themselves questioning their methods and strategies. It is critical to gauge employees’ moods and feedback periodically. 

Managers also need to set practical expectations for themselves, their teammates, and the organization. Along with the challenges of managing remote employees, managers are responsible for measuring remote employees’ productivity. Managers need to adopt a more humane approach to keep high-performing employees productive, engaged, and motivated. They must understand factors that make remote work demanding and help others to improve upon them. Simple attitude shifts can make all the difference in times of crisis.

An effective manager is good at communicating and listening. While remote working might make some managers exclusively task-focused, they must make time to interact with their teams and continuously communicate through video conferences and understand personal contexts. Managers need to communicate trust and respect and refrain from the desire to micromanage. Managing a dispersed team can be stressful, but making time for personal interactions can keep your team on track. Sharing experiences, jokes, or even what one had for lunch during these stressful times, can make your employees feel connected.

Coordinating with different members and teams while ensuring adherence to timelines and efficiency is a difficult challenge. Digital tools can aid in project management and accountability. Many managers believe in conducting daily or weekly team standups to stay abreast of developments that help to better manage expectations and provide a clearer picture of everyone’s contribution. Clear communication on accountability and timelines and constantly updating on progress is one way of effective project management. Using other tools such as a project management platform, an excel spreadsheet, or a virtual whiteboard, can enable keeping everyone updated.

As the distinction between personal and professional hours blurs, managers can start to lead by example and create clear boundaries. This ensures employees work to the best of their productivity but don’t get burned out. Managers should pay particular attention by iterating and reiterating every project’s roles and goals and the quantum of every team member’s involvement and responsibility. Providing the bigger picture, a shared vision, and each employee’s contribution to achieving them can positively impact teams by keeping them engaged and moving together in the right direction.

While a structure is required to manage deliverables, flexibility is needed to manage a team. With additional responsibilities that come with being at home, managers need to create a safe working environment by being flexible, wherever possible, by creating an enabling environment where employees can voice their concerns. Managers who address specific concerns of their team members often witness increased team productivity and effectiveness.

Equipping your workforce with bare minimum resources such as machines, remote tech support, and other tools required to stay productive is a good start. Organizations can also explore providing counseling, wellbeing sessions, access to shared online communities, learning and development opportunities through online courses, subscriptions, and more.

These unprecedented times have led organizations to make difficult decisions about workforce management to stay afloat. Organizations are going the extra mile to retain their best employees and not make any abrupt decisions. A structured and scientific strategy of high-potential identification can address this problem and equip your leaders to make better talent decisions for the uncertain times ahead.

Acknowledging high-performers with awards and recognitions is an excellent practice. Organizations need to build a culture of gratitude by thanking employees who stand out during a week or month. While organizations are trying to cut costs, a simple shout-out or an Amazon voucher goes a long way in keeping your employees motivated and connected to the organization’s cause.

Clear and consistent communication can help employees to plan better. Sharing short and long-term goals, communicating formally and informally, building trust and transparency, should be encouraged as general practices.

Anomalous times call for extraordinary resolve and determination on the part of employees, managers and organizations. To successfully conquer remote work, organizations need to identify a set of remote work skills and shift focus to L&D initiatives to empower everyone to effectively and productively work remotely without getting bogged down by the challenges of working remotely.

Mercer | Mettl’s suite of tools is designed to help you build an agile workforce during times of uncertainty. Mercer | Mettl has always been at the forefront of assisting organizations in building winning teams through intelligent recruitment technology and revolutionary L&D programs. Here are some of Mercer | Mettl’s solutions to enable you to better manage the COVID-19 disruptions:

Remote Work Survey: Measure employee pulse on remote working.

Remote Work Assessment: Define competencies and skills unique to your employees’ challenges of working remotely and get customized assessments.

High Potential Identification: Identify your most valuable employees for better talent optimization.

Virtual Assessment Centre: Conduct L&D initiatives as usual, with the help of technology, for continued workforce development and organizational planning.

Online Interview Platform: Hire remotely with a structured video interview tool to make quicker and better hiring decisions.