What Are Some Problems of Remote Working?
Due to the spread of the COVID-19 virus, most companies nowadays has adopted remote working culture. Remote working, also known as Work From Home(WFH), provides cost efficiency for both companies and employees. Companies can save expenses from rents and space, while employees can save both time and money spent on commutes. However, this idealistic working culture incurs a few difficulties in reality.
1. Difficulty in understanding employee performance
It has become extremely difficult to understand employee’s performances during remote work, due to the fact that not everyone works in the same space. Various collaboration tools have been developed to complement remote working, but these tools have not been developed to accurately measure and evaluate employees’ performances. The harder it became for managers to supervise their employees, the easier it became for some employees to free-ride, which can result in negative outcomes for the company. Nowadays, this is the main concern among companies seeking to adopt WFH.
2. Difficulty in communications
Adopting remote work almost always incurs a problem in communication. Companies adopting WFH use many different tools and services to allow their employees to communicate easier and better. However, communication during the remote work definitely falls shorter than face-to-face conversation. Delay in feedback, lack of expressions and emotions are a few examples of problems that cannot be replaced by collaboration tools. In addition, as companies started use various collaboration tools for different purposes, it became harder for companies to monitor employee activities on all these tools.
3. Decrease in employee engagement
The Gallup survey shows that remote working is inversely proportional to the employee engagement rate. As it has become very difficult to form company cultures online, it became harder for employees to stay engaged in the company. Employees can often feel isolated because their works and contributions are not recognized by their colleagues. Numerous data show that the number of meetings within the team decreases when WFH is adopted.
If so, let’s learn about the ways to solve the problems mentioned above.
A. Empowering employee recognition
Companies with remote working teams need to build an atmosphere where employees can openly acknowledge and recognize colleagues for their hard work that meets the company’s core values. Studies show that employee recognition is one of the most important aspects that affects employee engagement. Giving compliments can make employees feel more involved in the company, and can build a great company culture.
B. Assessing employee performances with proper data
It is important for the HR team to develop a way to correctly assess how employees achieve corporate KPIs. Companies need to collect numerous employee activity data in order to analyze and compare their performances. Making an effective guideline for personnel assessment on each criteria has become increasingly important for companies conducting WFH.
