Your employees are the backbone of your company and during this challenging time it’s more important than ever that companies are meeting their employees needs. As business leaders we have to consider their physical and mental wellbeing, this can only be achieved through careful planning and smart business decisions.

“How companies respond to that very question is going to define their brand for decades… So not only is it smart to take care of your employees, but it’s also good business and that’s the way I’m looking at it.” Mark Cuban.

So, with the majority of our workforce working from home for the foreseeable future, how should you keep your work-at-home employees motivated and engaged?

Check in with employees regularly

Keeping in touch with your employees reassures them that you value them. Whilst you will most likely be emailing them tasks, a more personal approach such as a phone call or even better, a video conference shows your employees that you’re going the extra mile and will encourage them to keep working hard.

Make the effort to update them with any information you have, they will be worried about their future employment and keeping them informed will help keep their mind at ease.

Encourage collaboration

A sense of community will go a long way right now with your employees currently in lock down. Maintaining a regular meeting schedule will keep your employees engaged with each other and encourage each other to keep their heads high and keep pushing on. A video conference is a great way to achieve this.

A platform that encourages collaboration on projects is also going to allow your employees to request help from each other and make sure that projects keep moving forward. The open source cloud ERP system Odoo has a great suite of collaboration tools that allows employees to work on tasks together, view version history and request approvals directly in the system.

Provide the right tools

If your employees don’t have the tools to efficiently do their job, it’s going to add another layer of frustration, stress and another reason to get demotivated.

This is where cloud systems have been such a huge positive. Having employees be able to access data and reports from anywhere in the world with a cloud ERP or CRM system like Odoo or Netsuite can make a world of difference on how your employees perform.

Whilst it may be too late to deploy one of these systems now, this should be a wake up call for businesses that the future will inevitable be remote and thus your systems must be flexible enough to deal with it.

Be flexible

Let’s face it, this is not going to be smooth sailing. For business owners, for employees, for anyone. Whilst you’re planning and assigning tasks, bare in mind that emergencies are more likely. Make sure that employees are ready to support each other and step in if any problems arise. This is another great reason why it’s so important to encourage collaboration, so employees can step in and help each other.

Be prepared

You need to to take a realistic look at what the future holds. A ‘What if’ report will help you to prepare for realistic scenarios. If the ongoing virus has an effect on your business for the next 6 months how will you respond? What costs can you cut to keep your employees on?

A robust planning and budgeting tool will help to create a more realistic scenario and thus a more robust plan.

Encourage learning

If you happen to have employees with a lack of tasks, now is a perfect time to encourage them to advance their knowledge. There is a wealth of online resources and courses that your employees can use to improve their skills. With it currently being unknown when businesses will return to normal, sourcing and assigning relevant courses to your employees can be a great way to keep your employees skills sharp and their brain switched on.

The future is uncertain, but as business leaders we have a responsibility to our employees. To keep them encouraged, keep moving forward and with the right leadership your employees will come back more motivated than ever once the virus subsides.