How to Motivate Your Remote Employees

You would think that things like better pay and more benefits would be at the top of every employee’s mind. You would be wrong. There is a study that found these things aren’t exactly the be-all and end-all of highly motivated remote workers. Peer motivation and recognition were the more prominent sources of employee motivation. 

It pays to understand these sorts of things. Know what it is that your workers need to give you better results. As a leader or a business owner, it’s only natural that you would want to find ways for your workers to achieve more. While many would err towards just hiring better, more qualified workers, the truth is that you already have the right kind of remote personnel. You just need to find ways to motivate them more. 

Here are some proven tips on how to keep your remote workers motivated so they can give you their best work and loyalty.

How to Keep Your Remote Workers Highly Motivated?

Motivating your workers is about finding what drives them and tapping into what they need to do their best work. Here are some tips on how to do that: 

1. Be a Pleasant Person to Work For

No one likes working for the “boss from hell”. Yes, even remote workers can get demotivated by working for someone who barks at them albeit via email. Find ways to make your company a pleasant one for your employees. The best way to do this is to have excellent structures in place and be sure to expressly tell everyone what is expected of them. When people know what they need to do they tend to specialize in their tasks instead of trying to feel their way around the organization. 

2. Be Communicative

Remember how “feeling recognized” was one of the highest motivators? Employees need to feel heard and they need to know that they can get a hold of you whenever they need your guidance or have a grievance they would like to convey. Make sure communicating is not a pain in the workplace by having a robust system in place. A centralized platform where all the communication takes place, in real-time if necessary. 

3. Come Up with Innovative Employee Rewards

While it’s true that the study found that things like money and better benefits weren’t really at the top of the list when it came to highly motivated remote workers, the truth is that everyone likes a reward every now and then. You know, some form of recognition for their hard work to show that they are appreciated. As a business owner hiring remote workers, you need to come up with innovative ways to reward your employees. You could explore avenues such as:

• Offering them quarterly bonuses for a job well done.
• Instituting a better, result-oriented commission structure.
• Offering to fly them to their favorite destinations. 
• Offering them a gift for their home office to make their desks more beautiful.

You could even offer a stake in your business for the most dedicated and best-performing workers. With an attractive reward system, you will find that your employees will have something more to work for other than their regular pay and that tends to entice them to push harder, work smarter and achieve more. 

4. Allow them to Grow Within the Organization

There is something to be said about the motivation levels of an employee who views his/her job as just another chore. These kinds of people rarely offer their best because they feel as though what they do is mundane. One of the best ways to combat that is to let your employees know that there is room to grow within the company; room to do more. Once they realize that they could one day become a manager or become something better than just another worker they will begin to own their craft. 

• Are you thinking of taking on more team members? How about making one of your best-performing employees a team manager?
• Have you identified a worker with an exceptional aptitude for inventory and stock taking? Why not put them in charge of vendor relations?

You can always find numerous ways of identifying and rewarding exceptional talents within your organization. Make the promotions as public as possible so that everyone else knows that they can be promoted too if they show great promise. 

5. Offer Flexible Working Schedules

About 86% of the best companies to work for in the world offer their employees some form of flexible working schedule. One of the main reasons why people choose to work remotely is so they can make their own schedule. If you allow your employees to deliver on their KPIs without necessary clocking in at specific times, you will find that all you get are results. People are better motivated to deliver once they realize that their jobs and livelihoods depend on their delivery. 

Giving them flexible working hours allows them to take control of their own schedules and therefore, their own lives. 

Your remote workers need to feel valued within the company. Showing them that they are and allowing them to be their own people will motivate them to do more for you and deliver their best work.