5 Ways Leaders Can Help Employees To Work Remotely With the responsibility of growing and developing team members, leaders must continue to support and inspire people, to help them grow

The COVID-19 pandemic has compelled the workforce across the globe to embrace new ways of working. Whether your employees are remote or back in-office, the future of work looks very different than it did a year ago.

To facilitate remote and hybrid working, organizations are experimenting with novel ways and investing in unique tools and infrastructure to support their employees. It's also imperative for leaders to step up and support this transition by acknowledging their employees' contribution, and lending support in various ways including extending emotional well-being and financial support to deal with this challenging situation.

Here are five ways how leadership can help employees to be more efficient while working remotely:

Regular check-in

A lot has changed since last year. While technology has helped us bridge communication and stay in touch, leaders may need to hit the reset button on how they're connecting with their teams. They also need to mandate their people managers for finding new ways to connect and check the pulse of their employees that are the driving force to the company's business. For instance, creating virtual employee resource groups or forums will ensure remote employees have a variety of options for gaining social support. This will help the employees to validate each other's experiences and share innovative solutions around challenges such as dealing with isolation, adapting to work-from-home routine, etc.

Building a people-first mindset

We know that employees are critical to ensuring the seamless functioning of an organization. To be truly agile and growth-oriented, companies must prioritize their employees' overall well-being. We've seen that in times of crisis, organizations that do well are always those that anticipate employee's unmet needs and rise to satisfy them sooner.

Leaders must take on a holistic approach to ensure their employees have access to the right resources and are supported by their peers and managers to cope with the ground realities. For example, by introducing policies on paid well-being leaves, flexible working options, or employee assistance programs for ensuring mental health and well-being, and free vaccination camps, organizations can rise above the clutter and nurture emotional connections which is even more important since the pandemic began.

Address technology gaps

The pandemic has accelerated the rapid adoption of digitalization, resulting in a shift in the skills needed. Redeploying new tools and automated technologies and upskilling has become the new mandate for organizations to create a more capable workforce. To stay competitive in this new business and economic environment, leaders must focus on filling the technology gaps in the organizations as well as on speedier adoption of advanced technologies and processes across the organization both for customer-facing changes as well as for internal operations. Similarly, building adequate IT infrastructure will remove organizational silos and enable employees to work efficiently as well as accelerate the digitization of customer experiences and interactions with organizations.

Build trust among employees

Trust is a foundation for building strong teams, creating a healthy working environment, and delivering results. As a leader, being trustworthy is about balancing the need for results with being considerate of others and their feelings. In fact, teams innovate best when they trust their leaders to create a wining culture where they can learn, contribute and dissent without fearing retaliation. A leader must be supportive and foster accountability by giving honest feedback on any dedicated project or a status report. Aligning your words and actions is a key pillar for building trust among the team members and for an organization's success.

Being open to ideas

A leader must be open-minded and help overcome fears that hold the employees back at work. They must think differently and assist their employees to acknowledge the situation with different perspectives or how things can be applied in new and novel ways. Leaders must listen to their employees and focus on cultivating a sense of belonging by being receptive to feedback and ideas as it is a powerful way to help businesses grow and progress. In fact, they should place equal value on good and bad ideas, creating a credible relationship with employees. Employer-employee bonding is the most crucial part of keeping any organization running smoothly and leaders can work to create a more inclusive culture.

In Conclusion

The pandemic has been difficult on employees. Undoubtedly, we need leaders to help employees see the bigger picture and how their work contributes to the organization's success. While remote working is here to stay for a longer time and a hybrid working model is the future of workplaces across the globe, companies are still learning and experimenting with different approaches for making the process feasible. With the responsibility of growing and developing team members, leaders must continue to support and inspire people, to help them grow.