3 Pain Points for Remote Workforces, and How to Fix Them

4 minutes min read |
People together smiling together.

Creating a fun environment for remote workers (Hailey)

Hailey is a Slack bot that builds camaraderie, connection, and recognition through prompts and social mini-games. Add her to any channel and she'll start connecting your team on autopilot.

Hailey is unique in its focus on building culture asynchronously. With games like "Guess Who" and "Superlatives", teammates can connect with each other on their own schedules, in their own time zones.

Teams can install Hailey in just a few minutes and try it free for 30 days.

Fostering personal connection (Donut)

Prior to COVID, coworkers could engage with anyone who was in the office.  Even being on different floors didn’t stop people from dropping by and saying hi for five minutes.  Recapping the weekend, welcoming a new hire, or sharing news just seen on Twitter.  Remote work changed that.  Spontaneous conversation dropped off overnight.  All at once, office dialogue disappeared.  Although it’s gradually come back, virtual happy hours and extended zoom meetings are not the long-term solution.

This begs the question: how do you encourage workers to have small talk with each other from their remote workspaces?  You don’t want distraction, but you do want connection.

Donut is an easy to use tool that randomly matches employees for morning coffee, lunch breaks, quick chats in the afternoon or watercooler chatter.  Not only does it boost camaraderie among newer hires, but it also builds community with existing employees.  The best part is that the scheduling is automated.  Used by the likes of Netflix, GitLab, Zapier and Okta, among many others, Donut is easily integrated into Slack and has a good track record, even before COVID.

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Nine different flavored donuts on a table.

Encouraging public praise and boosting morale (Bonusly)

Being remote only increases the feelings of isolation, uncertainty, and lack of appreciation.  Without a physical presence next to your workers, they will often miss out on spontaneous high-fives or shout outs from across the office.  Right now a slack message or an email to the entire org can help, but that feels like an absolute minimum - table stakes for any manager or coworker looking to boost a teammate. Reinforcement is key especially for new and younger hires and it’s critical to find ways to reward and praise your workforce.

Are you wondering how to reward employees while we’re all on an island?  Enter Bonusly

Bonusly is an employee recognition platform where employees can accumulate points from their coworkers - simply by doing small good deeds.  Help on a project?  Send Sam 10 points.  Filled in on a meeting?  Send Rachel 25 points.  Points can then be exchanged for rewards.  When we tell you the rewards are real, well, the rewards are real.  Bonusly partners with companies like Amazon, AirBnb, Nike and Chipotle, to name a few.  So, safe to say your points will be used.  On top of that, the praise you receive is on a public feed so everyone from the engineering department to sales leadership can see the shout out.  

We’ve noticed that Bonusly really increases cross-departmental collaboration, and engages employees during periods of change.

Getting organized and maintaining good habits (RampLane)

When COVID hit, offices scattered.  With that, many workers went home to a cramped and disorganized work environment.  Even experienced workers still took months to get situated.  As the pandemic went on and more companies went remote or hybrid, new hires faced unparalleled issues getting their home office set up.  Still today, there’s no standardization for which home equipment to purchase, what order to set it up in, and how to create a productive workspace.  Also as important, managers want peace of mind knowing that their teams aren’t working from their bed with Netflix (well, maybe not so much anymore) on in the background. 

Across the board, managers are asking: how can we help standardize workspace set up and make sure our teams are developing good work from home habits?

RampLane is a remote work solution that solves two problems.  First, it streamlines the setup process for new and existing hires by giving them a master checklist for their designated workspace.  This ensures workers are in compliance with the company’s work from home expectations.  All that curiosity about where someone works and what their command post looks like – gone!  Second, employees get the benefit of having a curated list of home office products that can aid and assist them in rounding out their setup.  No more worrying about 50 amazon searches or 100 google searches for the right lamp for your desk.

Originally Published onThu, 08/08/2024 - 13:17 | Updated on Thu, 08/08/2024 - 13:17
Tags
Connection
Leadership
Strategy
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