Best Practices to Keep Your Employees Productive While Working from Home

COVID-19 and social distancing mandates have dramatically changed the way people work. Over the past few weeks, a full or partial remote workforce has become a necessity for most organizations. Working from home has it benefits but it also comes with several disadvantages that can be hard on employees and productivity.

While technology is not a cue-all to all remote work issues, the right tools can help ease employee frustration and alienation. Employees can easily become ineffective when they are unable to access their files, complete tasks and collaborate with coworkers the way they used to. A lack of face time with other teammates can also lead to employees feeling disconnected. The good news is that with the right tools and technology, maintaining a productive and engaged remote workforce can be easier.  

Red River has experience in both being a remote workforce, as a large percentage of our workforce regularly remotely, and enabling a remote workforce for our customers with the right technology.  

 So, here are our top 5 best practices to keep your employees productive while working from home.  

Tip 1: Build a Modern Workspace 

Remote desktops and cloud solutions are changing the game when it comes to remote work. By moving to the cloud, organizations will experience little to no business disruptions when working from home. A cloud-based solution can help ensure that employees are able to stay productive within their favorite applications like Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. With solutions like Red River’s Remote Workforce Assist, your team can experience a secure and mobile desktop solution within minutes.  

Tip 2: Provide the Tools They Need   

Aside from computers, monitors and headsets, your team needs a collaboration tool that makes completing tasks easy. Microsoft Teams is a platform that allows your entire organization to connect. Microsoft Teams gives employees the ability to communicate with coworkers through chats, voice, video conferencing and more. You can easily share and coauthor documents while working in a secure environment. With the power of Microsoft Teams, businesses can make sure that team relationships remain strong and effective. 

Tip 3: Teach Them How to Use Their Tools 

While chat based and video conferencing tools can increase productivity, they are not effective if you don’t know how to use them. Red River provides several training opportunities to get your team up and running quickly. Our Customer Success Managers can support adoption and best practices through a comprehensive training program to get your team comfortable with their new “normal” environment.  

Tip 4: Set Attainable, Timestamped Goals 

Setting short-term goals is a great way to keep remote employees on track. By timestamping these goals, employees feel a sense of urgency and responsibility to make good use of their time. With tools like Microsoft Planner, you can easily assign tasks to your team, stay updated on their progress and track the status of projects. This is a quick way to get organized and get stuff done. The best part? This to-do application is already included with O365 and fully integrated with Microsoft Teams.    

Tip 5: Interact with Your Team 

Working remote makes it is easy to feel disconnected from your team. Thanks to video conferencing tools it is still possible to interact with your coworkers and continue to build relationships. Virtual happy hours and coffee breaks are a great way to build morale and interact with your team. A great practice is to schedule these on your team’s calendar and suggest talking points to keep the workplace humanized.  

No matter what your digital environment looks like we know remote work can be tough. There are several ways you can keep your organization productive, but it is important to discover which solution is best for you.  

 Red River offers a self-assessment that covers different components of remote work: your network, data center, collaboration tools and security. This 10- minute assessment will give Red River a clear picture of your environment and allow us to provide you with best tips and practices for your workforce, as well as, some quick advice for your next steps. Take our Assessment today!