You can engage and motivate your team by recognising achievements. Taking the time to reward and recognise your remote workforce is very important. Recognition of your employee’s good work makes them feel valued by you and the business. If you take the time to reward employees for excellence it makes them feel individually noticed by you and that what they contribute is important.
Working on your own and distanced from your team can feel isolating. It is easy for you to feel that your work has no worth and is not important to the business. If you regularly acknowledge the achievements of your remote workforce, these problems can be mitigated.
What are you rewarding and recognising?
Before you consider how to reward and recognise your remote workforce, first consider what you are recognising. Think about what you want to see more of in your organisation. Then design your recognition methods to recognise the behaviour that you want to increase. For example, if you want to improve customer service, recognise excellent instances of helping customers. By making your recognition goals clear, employees are more likely to act to achieve those goals and stay focused on that purpose.
How to reward and recognise your remote workforce
It is key that your employees are comfortable with the form of recognition. It also needs to be consistent with your company culture. For example, highlighting individual achievements on a large video call may make some employees feel uncomfortable. So make sure that your methods of recognition are appropriate for your individual employees, team and business.
Of course a simple ‘thank you’ is an easy way of recognising good work. But to be more effective, be specific about what you are recognising the employee for. As a manager, make the value of what they have done to the organisation clear. This way you are more likely to boost the motivation of the remote employee and refocus them on the goal. This thanks can be in an email or via a telephone or video call. Make sure that you put aside some time each week to recognise the achievements of your team.
As a leader, you need to lead by example to encourage peer-to-peer recognition. Think about whether a collaboration platform would be useful to make peer-to-peer recognition easier. This makes your remote employees feel more connected to each other. Employees will feel less isolated and more connected to the business.
More Information
Chapter 8 of Orti, P. and Middlemiss, M. (2019) Thinking Remote discusses how to share success in remote teams.
If you would like to discuss a specific reward and recognition issue, please contact me.
This post contains affiliate links. If you purchase a product via a link on this page, I get a small commission. The product does not cost you any more.