Earlier, work from home culture was reserved only for certain industries. Due to the pandemic, it became necessary for companies to adopt remote workspace to ensure smooth working of operations of the organisation.
With new responsibilities comes new challenges.
While hiring a remote workforce, it is important that companies set and communicate proper company policies. The most difficult part of remote workspace hiring is to convey work culture.
How you set the culture shapes the future and depends on the company values.
Challenges of Hiring a Remote Workforce
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Connection
People who are hired during the pandemic have been struggling to build connections with their teams. It is really difficult to know people’s personalities when you have had bare minimum communication between each other. Connecting and Communicating with your office colleagues is the best way of building networks in your professional world, which has now become a bit of a hassle.
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TeamWork
Another thing that comes next when you can’t create connections with your team is its impact on teamwork and team projects. When you meet people in person, people bond over little breaks, but it is challenging to create a repo with your colleagues when you are in a remote workspace, which directly affects team productivity.
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Time Management
When in a remote workspace, it’s difficult to draw a line between work and personal life. This has created several issues for companies as your deadlines and targets are affected, instantly impacting your efficiency. Employees need to be self-disciplined to have proper time management in the remote workspace.
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Incorporating Company Work Culture
It’s so difficult to incorporate the company work culture as per the organisation’s policies as people are working from different places at different times(including different time zones). It takes way more time than usual to set people in the company’s work culture and establish the chain of authorities.
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Building Trust
It is extremely difficult to build trust between employees and the company when you are in a remote workspace. There is less communication as compared to in-person work culture. People don’t know each other enough to trust them. Companies don’t know if they’ll complete their work, and employees are worried whether they’ll be paid on time or at all.
How to Overcome the Challenges?
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Laying down organisational values
Companies must properly define their core values in order to communicate clearly with their future employees during the hiring process. Managers should also notify the team timely of any updates in company policies to ensure clear communication.
Luciana Paulise in her article that was published on Forbes says, “Sharing values is not about just including them in the onboarding package or posting them on the wall. It is about living, working, and breathing based on these values. Leaders, in particular, are the role models for these values. They have to make the culture come alive regularly, and walk the talk, even in a remote conversation, and reward people who are role models for those values.”
She also went ahead and gave a few ideas as to how company values can be reinforced after the onboarding process. She says, “To reinforce company values after the onboarding process, companies can start by:
- Reiterating values during all-hands meetings and coaching sessions
- Sharing stories about real-life experiences of people who have demonstrated those values
- Providing rewards, through leaders or peers, to individuals who live out company values
- Organizing "speed dates" with the current staff and asking them if they would like to work with this person or have them in their group.”
There are plenty of human resources team apps that can do all of the above tasks and more. Not only will these apps help you find better candidates, but they’ll also go a long way in keeping them happy and engaged. Just make sure you heavily research each app before you use it to ensure it works for your business needs.
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Regular Training and Mentoring Sessions
In the remote workspace, it is absolutely necessary for organisations to regularly conduct training and mentoring sessions to ensure all the employees are on the same path. Or if they need any help or feel stuck anywhere.
Mentoring sessions create trust between employees and the company which leads to loyalty in the future. The remote workspace requires regular meetings as they can check on each other through them.
Further, it creates a sense of responsibility on the remote workforce to complete their targets before this weekly or once in two weeks call.
This can also act as an ice breaker between teams and encourage communication between team members or interdepartmental teams.
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Transparency
Bringing transparency can help to build trust among all parties.
Companies need to be transparent about:
- Working hours
- Project Expectations
- Payscale and Payment timeline
- Workload
And employees need to be transparent about:
- Time Availability
- Work status updates
- Any other commitments, if they have any
- Any difficulties they face
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One-on-one Meetings
One-on-one Meetings boost employee morale and make them feel valued and heard. While it might seem like a hassle but it makes a lot of difference. These meetings make sure employees don’t feel out of touch with the company and are sure of where they stand and their roles.
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Team Building Activities
To ensure and encourage communication between team members, the company can organise some fun activities online regularly, like once a month to bond remote workforce. This will help with building connections and team productivity.
The remote workforce is the new norm. Companies will need to recruit more often and make it a part of the culture as the rollover ratio is going to increase. Employees are prone to leave the company more likely as everyone is hunting for change and growth. The human resource team needs to lay down a new hiring procedure to filter out the right fit for the remote workspace of the company. They need to ensure that the company doesn’t hire people who will be disinterested or are a misfit leading to a waste of time and money of the organisation.
Let us know your views in the comment section below.
To read more remote work-related blogs, refer to the links attached below:
Virtual Venues For Meetings and Conferences
There are several options for various types of video conferencing software. Which one suits your company needs depends upon your needs and budget. Find out several such options.
Adapting to The New Normal With Smart Offices
Learn what are smart offices and how can one adopt the new normal. Read here
How to Run an Efficient and Effective All Hands Meeting
Do you know what an All-Hands Meeting is? Find out what is an all hands meeting, how to conduct an efficient virtual all hands meeting and what are the best practices for such meetings. Click here
OpenGrowth Hub equips remote teams with the tools they need to function well by enabling virtual collaboration. Aiming to build an effective team while nurturing leadership in each and everyone.
We, at OpenGrowth, are continually looking for trending startups in the ecosystem. If you want to know any further information about the startup ecosystem or have any mind-boggling ideas, do refer to the other blogs at OpenGrowth. If you have any suggestions, do let us know in the comment section below.
