How To Engage Your Employees During Quarantine

In view of the epidemic of COVID-19, companies around the world had to rapidly adapt to new business conditions. Within a week, companies from completely different sectors of the economy had to send their employees to work remotely. Talking about our experience, at Idealogic, we have transferred all of our employees to a remote mode of work on March, 18.

Without any warning – and in many cases, without any preparation – managers had to lead their virtual teams, many for the first time in their practice. Given the pressure and uncertainty we are surrounded by and the information that we consume daily from the news channels, it is now more important than ever to maintain the spirit of your team and guide it in the right direction, without losing the level of concentration and effectiveness. But how to do it? I will share with you how we at Idealogic deal with this.

1. Stay in touch with your team. To build and maintain morale and engagement, use instant messengers to communicate and stay in constant contact.

At Idealogic, we have a common chat in Telegram, in which we post interesting information, share funny pictures, gifs, and stickers.

2. Make regular calls. Since everyone is now sitting at home, it is very important to socialize, communicate and interact more (of course, only virtually) with other people. In addition to working calls on projects, make regular calls to discuss an interesting topic or just chatter.

We have implemented a rather interesting practice of daily calls at a fixed time, at which we discuss various topics or just ask how everyone is doing. Thus, we create a comfortable atmosphere where everyone can express their opinion and share something interesting or fun. It is also a great way of control so that no one falls out of the work process.

3. Share interesting resources with the team. Regular (but not too frequent) communication about interesting articles, videos, concepts, courses, training materials, books, films, and TV shows will be a great addition to the working day. Thus, employees will be able to constantly learn something new as well as feel cared for by the company.

We are active on our LinkedIn page, where we publish fresh news, motivating quotes, interesting cases, and stories in the business world.

4. Sincerely take care of your employees. Ask how they are doing, what they feel, whether they need support or help with something.

We are all accustomed to an active, to one degree or another, social life, which we have now transferred to online. It is important that our teams feel safe in all aspects: they are not afraid to participate, contribute to projects, learn something new, and challenge the situation that has developed under the quarantine. It is important to create and maintain the conditions that will help everyone work in a convenient mode, take part in projects and at the same time do not forget that we are all humans.

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