Struggling with remote employee engagement? 5 strategies that actually work

Every HR leader knows the rise of remote work has indelibly reshaped the modern workplace. From startups to tech titans like Salesforce and Microsoft, many companies have shifted to a remote-first work environment, ensuring remote employees are fully integrated into company culture and considered in all business decisions. Even as more companies go back to the office and shift to hybrid work models, remote work is here to stay, making remote employees a critical population to engage.

Research shows that employee engagement is a key factor for productivity, retention, and overall employee success. When employees are more engaged, companies experience lower turnover rates and reduced employee absenteeism. Highly engaged employees are also more innovative and creative, as well as more willing to go above and beyond the scope of their role, leading to increased productivity and improved business performance. 

Beyond improved employee loyalty and well-being, employee engagement is also a crucial factor in overall customer satisfaction. The State of the American Workforce Report showed that organizations with engaged teams have 10% higher customer ratings, 28% less attrition, 70% fewer safety incidents, and 21% greater profitability. Read on for proven strategies to help engage your remote workforce.

Why remote employee engagement matters

Employee engagement goes deeper than employee happiness or satisfaction; it describes the emotional commitment an employee has to an organization and its goals. While there is no singular definition of employee engagement and the components that play into it, it helps to think of overall employee engagement in subcategories of emotional engagement, cognitive engagement, and physical engagement.

Remote work provides unique challenges in employee engagement, as companies are unable to rely on older, tried-and-true in-person tactics. Without face-to-face interaction, employees can feel more disconnected and isolated from their coworkers. Hybrid work environments can exacerbate these feelings of isolation and detachment for remote employees, especially when more people are back in the office and able to engage with their teams in person. Additionally, with an increasingly globalized workforce, communicating across various time zones can present an additional engagement barrier.

Remote employee engagement can boost productivity, improve mental health outcomes and reduce burnout, and increase employee loyalty and retention. Since highly engaged employees are 21% more productive than their less engaged counterparts, there is a clear case for profitability with greater employee engagement as well, and even a 10% boost in customer loyalty and engagement.

Common pitfalls in remote employee engagement

Since engaging remote employees has its own unique set of challenges, many organizations get stuck in the same pitfalls that hinder their efforts. For example, many companies underestimate the importance of regular communication and feedback. Without the natural opportunities for informal interactions that a physical office can provide, it's easy for remote workers to feel disconnected, undervalued, and out of the loop.

Another common mistake is relying too heavily on one-size-fits-all solutions. Remote employees span different roles and time zones, and each employee comes with their own identities, lived experiences, cultures, and priorities. Applying blanket engagement strategies to a diverse workforce is likely to fail, while tailoring engagement initiatives like work schedules, communication, and professional development to meet individual employee needs and interests can lead to much higher engagement for remote workers especially.

Many organizations also underestimate the importance of company culture in virtual settings. While remote culture may be even harder to pinpoint than the culture of an in-person workplace, it's no less important or real. Without consciously adapting culture creation to a virtual, remote environment, employees are likely to feel disconnected and disengaged from the organization's overall mission and priorities.

Strategies to boost remote employee engagement

Knowing there's no one-size-fits-all solution to boost employee engagement, there are still best practices and tactics that companies can adopt and tailor to be more inclusive of their remote teammates.

Invest in technology for seamless collaboration

One of the easiest ways to boost remote employee engagement is investing in collaborative technology. Tools like Slack, Zoom, and project management platforms such as Asana, Airtable, and Trello allow distributed teams to communicate more effectively and collaborate in real time. From custom Slack emojis to whiteboarding tools in Zoom and Miro, many of these technologies can create virtual spaces that mimic in-office interactions.

However, because these tools enable constant communication, over-reliance on these tools can lead to blurred work-life boundaries and increased burnout. Managers can help their teams set and enforce healthy boundaries, like limiting after-hours notifications and designating "no meetings" days or times. While these real-time collaborative tools are exciting, it's also imperative to invest in tools that allow for more seamless, asynchronous collaboration. Shared documents and task trackers allow team members in different time zones to contribute at their convenience without the pressure of all being online at the same time.

Build a culture of recognition and appreciation

With a distributed remote workforce, it can be more difficult to build a culture of consistent employee recognition, but this public appreciation is often incredibly important and motivational to many employees. Virtual shoutouts, whether during team meetings or via communication platforms like Slack or Teams, provide real-time recognition. Digital rewards, like gift cards or recognition platforms, can help to add a tangible element of appreciation. To make recognition more interactive and fun, many organizations have gamified their engagement strategies through virtual leaderboards, badges, or rewards.

Regular rituals like a weekly “Wins Round-Up" creates a structured and consistent way to celebrate successes, big and small. By embedding recognition into team structure and culture, organizations can make sure all employees and especially remote workers feel valued, included, and prioritized, leading to higher engagement overall.

Prioritize mental health and well-being

Since the boundaries between work and personal life can become especially blurry when employees work from home, it's important to explicitly prioritize employee mental health and well-being to prevent burnout and keep remote employees engaged. The majority of US professionals at 77% report experiencing burnout at some point, and 20% of HR leaders say that the blurring of work responsibilities and personal life contributes to this widespread burnout.

To address employee burnout and boost engagement, it's imperative to foster a company culture that supports a healthy work-life balance and accommodates shifting circumstances and priorities throughout employees' different life stages. Whether a company is hybrid or remote-first, research shows that flexible work arrangements have a positive impact on employee engagement and retention. Managers should lead by example, taking regular breaks, using their time off, and maintaining work-life boundaries to encourage their direct reports to do the same.

In addition to offering flexibility in terms of working hours and location, employer-sponsored mental health resources can be pivotal in reducing employee burnout. In fact, over 90% of American employees say that company-sponsored mental health coverage is, or would be, important for workplace culture.

When companies offer mental health benefits that span the family and reproductive health journey specifically, they see an increasingly positive impact on employee engagement. For Maven members, 33% are better able to manage anxiety and depression due to the level of support provided and 96% of our Fertility & Family Building members state they are more loyal to their employer.

Women's and family health benefits also help provide equitable care across distributed teams, with virtual resource ensuring everyone has access to the best support when raising their family regardless of geographic location. Through both physical and mental health support, employees utilizing these benefits often achieve a better balance between work and family life, making them more productive and loyal.

Foster connection through team-building activities

While fostering connection among remote team members may require some extra creativity, team building is just as important to engage remote employees as it is for in-office workers. Virtual happy hours, trivia games, and skill-building workshops can be valuable tools for fostering connection and overall engagement.

By creating opportunities for conversation and connection outside of daily work tasks, these activities allow team members to have shared experiences and show up more fully in the workplace. Smaller breakout sessions, whether during social events or workshops, also encourage deeper engagement by allowing for more focused and meaningful interactions, ensuring everyone gets a chance to speak and participate. In these smaller, more intimate settings, employees can connect on a personal level and share ideas more openly.

Offer professional development opportunities

To further boost engagement, make sure employees know what growth prospects, professional advancement, and continuous learning opportunities are available to them. Remote employees are often passed over for raises and growth opportunities, and they get promoted 31% less frequently than their in-office coworkers. With nearly 90% of CEOs preferring in-office workers to their remote counterparts, it’s no surprise that remote workers often feel overlooked, neglected, or stagnant.

In fact, 94% of employees say they would stay at a company longer if it invested in training and development programs. These professional development initiatives can include mentorship programs, work shadowing, training workshops, sponsoring conferences and courses, and outlining clear career progression paths.

The role of leadership in driving engagement

Especially in a remote setting, leadership modeling engagement from the top down plays a pivotal role in driving overall employee engagement. Empathetic and transparent leadership builds trust and connection, ensuring employees feel seen and respected. Regardless of whether senior leadership works remotely, hybrid, or in-person, they should demonstrate empathy for the challenges their remote workers face specifically and listen to their concerns and ideas.

To best listen to and support employees, managers should prioritize one-on-one meetings to understand employee needs and provide tailored support. These conversations allow leaders to identify obstacles, celebrate achievements, and offer guidance, recognizing that there likely isn't a silver bullet solution.

Leaders can also model engagement in virtual spaces by actively participating in team activities, leveraging collaboration tools effectively, and maintaining a positive, connected presence. This top-down modeling sets the tone for the entire organization, encouraging employees to follow suit.

Measuring and improving engagement over time

Since employee engagement is not a static metric, it's important to develop tools to measure and improve employee engagement year over year.

Use employee feedback tools

To effectively measure employee engagement, companies can use tools such as employee surveys, focus groups, and one-on-one interviews. Perhaps the most widely known tool, employee engagement surveys are common for a reason. These surveys allow leadership to hear directly from employees, establishing a baseline and tracking changes over time. Additionally, allowing employees to provide anonymous feedback in these avenues may help them feel more comfortable being honest and addressing sensitive issues. Surveys like the Gallup Q12 engagement survey or custom-designed questionnaires can provide quantitative data on engagement levels.

Analyze engagement metrics

When it comes to employee engagement, metrics like employee retention rates, absenteeism, and participation in team events are solid indicators of how engagement efforts are working. Interpreting this data involves analyzing trends, identifying strengths, and pinpointing areas for improvement.

Iterate and adapt

Once HR professionals have collected and analyzed employee feedback, they can begin to target areas for improvement. For example, low scores in areas like recognition or career development can guide targeted actions to create more engaged workers and reduce employee turnover, whereas high rates of burnout may point to the need for more mental health resources.

The future of remote engagement

Employee engagement refers to the level of enthusiasm and commitment a worker feels toward their work and organization and is based on emotional, cognitive and physical factors. Actively engaged employees strive to support a company's goals whereas disengaged employees can lower productivity and profitability.

Drivers of employee engagement include rewards and recognition, the opportunity to learn new skills, and employee benefits. Employee benefits, in particular, have a clear connection to an employee's level of engagement and overall organizational success.

Women's and family health benefits are perfectly placed to provide inclusive, quality care that can help employees create a better work-life balance and improve their physical and mental health outcomes, while also enhancing employee engagement.

If you're an employer who wants to drive employee engagement and business growth with holistic care, you can start by evaluating your existing strategies and redesigning your offering. Let Maven help you. Book a demo today to find out more.