Creative Ways to Communicate with Remote Employees

Before recent global events that made “remote work” a household name, organizations in blue-collar fields have been pining to discover a cost-efficient and effective way to communicate with their remote and non-desk employees. For many, this means that management and human resources (HR) need to get creative in order to maintain a high level of communication between teams. 

Internal text communication is not a new concept, but the variety of tools to engage remote employees that organizations have to choose from can be overwhelming, especially for smaller businesses where the owner has to take on the HR roles as well. Oftentimes the platforms that companies choose to communicate with their remote teams don’t consider employees without a smartphone, company computer or company email. Non-desk employee communication has always been something that the team at Yourco has valued, which is why we have put together this piece to expose the outdated methods and help teams get more creative with communication.

How Do You Communicate Effectively with a Remote Team?

Short message service (SMS) (which is just your standard text messaging) systems are one of the most common ways that companies communicate with their remote teams. In the past, methods like email or phone calls were the go-to option for all-important communication. As the working environment and technology have advanced, newer methods of communication have entered the space. You are likely aware of the popular services like Slack, Microsoft Teams, and Whatsapp, but all of these systems require one or more of the following:

• Access to a laptop
• Downloading an application
• Company Email

These services can actually be more of a headache than a solution. So what options do you have if you want to communicate with your remote teams effectively? Call us biased, but the creative and innovative system from Yourco is hard to beat.

• No download is required from employees
• No passwords to remember
• Works with any phone and any provider your employees have (AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile, etc.)

How Do You Engage with Remote Employees?

It is no surprise that teams working in an office or at the central headquarters are going to have a different dynamic than that of a team across the country working in a warehouse. The obvious concern of business owners is finding a way to keep the same level of engagement with all teams so that productivity does not fall. Here are a few ways that employers can meaningfully engage with their remote employees.

• Keep Communication Concise: When coordinating with a remote team, holding them in lengthy meetings or phone calls will delay everyone involved and set back project deadlines. Thoroughly think about what is absolutely necessary for each message and only send that information. This makes every communication matter and not distract from important work.
• Ask for Feedback: Communication strategies can vary for remote teams. What works in an office setting can be off-putting for the non-desk remote team. A simple way to combat this is with an end-of-the-week check-in to see if the communication was effective. This also helps the remote team feel just as valued as the others. 

How Does Remote Working Affect Communication?

The difficulties that can arrive for a team of 100% office workers that go remote is lengthy, so you can imagine the challenges that can arise for a remote team that is working in a warehouse without the ability to take long meetings from a desk. The most obvious effect that remote working has on communication with other teams is that there will simply be less communication. We mentioned getting feedback from remote teams on how current communication efforts are working at the end of a specific period. You can, however, take a proactive approach where you communicate the most critical information around what needs to get done at the beginning of a week. Then you can reserve all other communications for emergencies or changes in plans/schedules.

Yourco: The Best Way to Communicate with Remote Employees

We want to make internal communication with remote, non-office employees as seamless as possible. Communication should not slow work down but make it easier. That is why our system was built with operational efficiency in mind. The conversations that take place during work are important and should be able to be referenced to enhance the business.

By utilizing Yourco, all employee text messages are stored and automatically documented. You can refer to historical employee text messages and reference them as needed.

To make poor communication a thing of the past, contact us to set up a demo, or try it out for free today.