2 Best Ways to Hire Remote Employee – and Keep Them Engaged with Work

Hiring managers are often reluctant to allow their employees work remotely owing to the fear of lack monitoring and communication. Having remote workers also means that employers need to be ready for minimum or even zero physical interaction with them, which is important to maintain relationship and leadership in the business. For example, in an actual workplace where in-house employees are located, a leader can be more than just a leader at work. They can chat, laugh, eat, and have a sharing session together at the office together, activities that will help strengthen employee engagement and teamwork.

On the other hand, however, more and more candidates are looking for the opportunities to do remote working. Besides giving them freedom to choose their own working style and space, working remotely can also drive employee efficiency, lower employee’s work stress, and boost employee morale. A survey from Remote.Co shows that not only remote jobs can be beneficial for employees, it can as well decrease real estate costs and overhead. American Express has reported annual savings of $10 million to $15 million thanks to its remote work options.

That being said, remote jobs can be your best option to bring in talent skills that are scarce in your location. We have gathered some tips to hire remote workers effectively, and here are 2 best hiring ways you should consider.

Hiring #1   Use synchronous and asynchronous means to assess candidates

In the process of hiring remote candidates, conducting phone and video interviews are the best ways to communicate with them. These will also be your primary communication channels. Using assessment tools such as HireVue, Jobma, Human, Saberr is the best idea to evaluate candidates’ skills and make an objective hiring decisions – not to mention, it will ease your job too. However, time gap between their locations and yours should also be taken into consideration when hiring remote workers. Therefore, before hiring you should first agree on an overlap time as long as your company and the candidate can cover communication and collaboration in real time. It means that you can use an instant messaging for tactical items and voice/video communication for better strategic discussions.

Hiring #2   Ask for referrals

It is important for you to reach out to other people who know your candidates better. Also, referrals is one of effective way of sourcing remote employees. Why? Because referrals can improve your hiring quality faster, so you will be able to know whether the candidate is really the best for the position or not.

Knowing and applying the hiring tactics above can ease your job when hiring a remote employee. Yet, another issue could arise such as how to make your remote employee engaged with works or how to make talented remote employees stay. Worry no more! You can adopt these 6 motivation ways to keep remote employees happy and engaged with work.  

Motivation #1   Cut off the unnecessary

Sometimes, some leaders are giving too much attention to remote employees such as frequent calls. It is good to pay attention and care for your employee. However, too much face time, checking, or calling will likely make your remote employee uncomfortable. So, you need to cut the fluff. It is true that communication is your number one key to stay connected with your remote employees and a good flow of communication needs to be established. Therefore, you should leave them with their time and let them alone do the job. As long as it meets deadline and expectation, you do not need to worry of the unnecessary.

Motivation #2   Assist with time management

Time management can be one of big obstacles for remote employee to work effectively. Therefore, providing them with tools and training on how to manage time is great. It also shows that the management do care about them and gives them another resource for success. You can use management tools like Trello for this matter.

Motivation #3   Emphasize culture

It can be a difficult thing to do but Harvard Business Review (HBR) said that developing company culture with remote employees is important to foster engagement. It was mentioned in HBR article that you need to build trust. Building trust is a good way to accomplish all members together on a frequent basis, including remote employees.

Motivation #4   Emphasise on what, not when

Setting expectation is one of motivator for remote workers. Just like your other employees, remote worker needs a clear direction of what is expected from them. Since remote worker’s position can be anywhere, you should let them use their most productive time but give them deadline.

Motivation #5   Recognise their work

Recognition is important and proven to make employees happier. Therefore, you should make recognition highly visible so other members are aware that their contribution matters. You can adopt this method in order to value and recognise your remote employee’s works: create informal communication session, provide team with recognition tools, offer reward for remote employee, or send handwritten thank you notes.  

Motivation #6   Keep them happy

All professional HR knows that happy employee is likely to be more engaged with work – and making remote employee happy is far easier. According to TINYpulse, being a remote employee itself is already a happiness. You can as well ask them directly to what makes them happy and provide them their need. It usually is as simply as giving additional training or more holiday.

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