How to keep your employees motivated during COVID-19

Covid-19 undoubtedly wreaked havoc on most companies across the globe. To keep the community safe and healthy, a big number of companies had no other options but to have their employees work from home. Unfortunately, that’s not the end of the problem. Working from home is not just a matter of working location, the big next question is what employers can do to engage and motivate worn out employees while working remotely.

As trivial as it might seem, this is actually a headache to managers and leaders. During times of crisis like COVID, people have the tendency to do exactly what is assigned to them instead of proactively doing more than what is required, which hurts the productivity and growth of the organization as a whole.

Despite what was just mentioned above, somehow, there are still stories of organizations thriving during COVID. These companies secured bigger market shares, won customers’ trust and managed to maintain as well as increase their profits. In other words, these companies figured out the perfect way to bend to the new social norms instead of succumbing to the situation. This is thanks to one thing they did right: keeping their employees motivated.

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The realities of Working From Home

First of all, it is helpful to be aware of the notion that working from home is likely to demotivate your employees.

While conducting surveys to work-from-home employees, it is found that their motivation is significantly lower than those working in the office. This decrease in motivation results from lower-quality working environments.

Three factors that directly affect productivity are specified: family pressure, health concerns, and financial worries. These factors are even more relevant with the interference of COVID. Unsurprisingly, the media and worrisome community only worsen the situation.

Another point that people don’t often factor in is the decreasing attention span while working from home. People can focus better on solving problems with their colleagues or making decisions during a meeting. The fact that employees don’t have to deal with teammates, clients, or supervisors can cause them to neglect their work. Also, without the presence of a supervisor, there’s no one to manage or guide workers to get their job done. You need to get on the same page with managers and team leaders to keep your employees motivated.

Inspire your employees to work

Taking this situation as an example. When an employee is diagnosed with some serious illness, it is common sense that the supervisor cuts down on the workload so that his/her employee can focus on the treatment. However, a job might be the one thing your employee needs to be distracted from his/her sickness.

This can be applied to all companies during financial crises. While some people are busy mourning over the adversity, sharp-witted leaders take advantage of crises like COVID will try to establish their positions on the market. During the time of crisis, ones who manage to stay passionate will gain the fruits they deserve. The point here is that having something to work on is a big motivation for employees. The key is to adjust the process, policy and procedure to fit with the current situation. Despite the existence of assisting tools for working remotely, strictly sticking to the old way of getting things done will definitely backfire.

To get your employees enthusiastic about work, assign them impactful tasks. Give your employees the chance to do things that actually matter such as thinking about the companies’ current problems and come up with practical solutions to tackle them.

This step definitely helps because your employees will feel the need to solve all the pending problems. It doesn’t always have to be a big deal to keep your employees motivated. The problem can be as trivial as how to make customers feel more welcome or how to manage the workload better. Just give your subordinates something that truly matters to work on, instead of tedious tasks that have little or no impact and unclear outcomes.

Tips for a successful WFH transition

Here are some things you can do to have a more efficient WFH transition for your entire company and keep your employees motivated.

First of all, much as you should be more flexible with rules and policies while people are working from home, still make sure to keep the regular work hours. Have your employees set themselves regular hours to keep them accountable not only to you and the team but also to themselves.

Next step, discuss with your employees about issues they might or they have run into while working remotely. Setting up weekly or bi-weekly check-ins to make sure your employees are doing okay professionally and personally and see if there’s anything you can do to improve their working conditions.

Last but not least, come up with a way to maximize motivation and efficiency for these weeks of remote work by giving out extra bonus or other types of rewards when someone is showing excellent performance. No matter what you do, the push to finish work is always exhausting especially during this time, and the one thing that motivates people to continue pushing through is incentives.

The shift to home office is challenging for all of us, but with some efforts and strategic planning, just anyone will manage to have productive work days. Just make sure as a manager and a leader, you figure out what works best for you and motivate your employees.

The JobHopin team