So you’ve decided to send your employees to work as Remote staff. You’ve decided that the coronavirus is not going to be a hindrance to your operations. That’s a great choice!

What about the workers whom you cannot afford to send for remote work?

Which from among your staff should you retain?

This is a tough question. But in the issue of cocooning and transitioning your business to a proper office into a Remote work arrangement, then there are key things you need to consider before going remote.

1. Maintain their Salaries

It’s understood that some of your workers might start taking pay cuts. But for those whose work is absolutely crucial to your operations, then you need to maintain their salaries – if you can – and give them the same semblance of responsibilities they always had even before your transition to remote staffing.

2. Keep their Benefits

If you co-pay their government dues and social security, then keep doing that. As long as your operations can still afford to pay them and also provide them their remittances, then this is crucial especially in a time when they may need to take advantage of loans because of the Covid-19 crisis. You retain them through showing them things are the same in spite of the Covid-19 crisis.

3. Assess their KPI’s

It’s important that you or your Supervisors assess their KPI’s to make sure they are actually delivering. This should not change during the period when you transition to remote work. Some of their KPI’s can include:

• Time frame for closing calls
• Number of calls they take in a day
• Number of updates to your website or Apps if they are programmers or IT
• Number of tickets they resolve if they are Support Desk
• How many accounts or workers are they checking and balancing if they are Accounting staff.

4. Make Career Development a Priority

If they are a Graphic Designer and you want them to get into Content Writing, then offer them a chance to write articles! Conversely, if they are a Video Editor and they want to learn Visual Effects Animation, then install VFX Software in their computers!

Career Development is key to making them grow with you and it is also a motivator for them to do great work. If you keep them stagnant, there’s no reason that this isn’t going to be a very nourishing work experience.

5. Encourage a creative work environment

No person ever has to dread Mondays if you foster an environment where creativity is encouraged and everyone has a voice.  If your employees like to banter with each other and have fun, then that is all the better rather than a normally drab, office set up.

If you use good humor and creativity and videos and cartoons to liven up your workflow then make that carry over when it’s time to go remote. Use Slack or Skype to chat and use Video Calls when it’s time to have your daily meetings.

6. Value feedback from Employees

Feedback is crucial. Whether you are into eCommerce or you are a Tech Company or you’re an Accounting firm. Your industry can only benefit if feedback is mutual. You provide them the feedback while you, in turn receive some feedback from them.

If you insist on them working on a specific platform and they feel a certain other app is going to function to help you make your site work, then allow them to experiment.

Also, it’s important to set parameters anyway, and they would know where their creativity meets your parameters and expectations.

7. Prioritize their concerns

If there is anything in the pipeline that needs accomplishing but your remote employees feel other aspects need to be attended to first, such as dispensing some of the products that are still upstanding in sales, then work on those.

If their concerns are valid and therefore warrant implementation, then this goes to show you value their opinion and they are making active contributions to your organization.

8. Offer them Job Opportunities

If some of them need to be let go or their duties suspended for the duration of the quarantine, then you might offer them part time opportunities or future job openings. You don’t have to keep them on the payroll yet if their work necessitates an office instead of work from home arrangements. However, if you offer them opportunities,  chances are, the end of the Covid-19 pandemic will produce a need for jobs and you will have these people still in your repertoire of staff.

9. Trust them.

Sure, you can use Screenmeter, Ashima, Time Doctor and whatever tools you need to make sure they are accountable while working from home. But ultimately, you have to trust them. This conversation goes beyond the need to work from home because of coronavirus and centers for disease control CDC protocols.

This conversation is about you trying to find the right people for the job so that they are the best fit in performing their job responsibilities.

10.  Foster a sense of ownership.

If they are proud of your brand, then there’s no reason that they won’t be proactive in aiding the sales of your company. This is a crucial step. If you’re not adding any value to the overall economy, and your products are not of value, why did you even start to begin with. You can foster a sense of ownership with them, because if they are proud of the services and products you give, then they will all the more be eager about those.

Plan for a Remote Staffing Future

It’s all good and well for you to return to the office as soon as we flatten the curve with Covid-19. But if you find that remote staffing is actually an efficient way to cut costs, then you may retain it for the time being. Or divide your workforce into office staff and remote workers.

However, due to the coronavirus, you need to be clever about the way you staff. These tips for retaining the best employees for remote work hopefully serve you so you can continue your operations.

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