Steve is the co-founder and CEO of award co, a fast growing rewards and recognition company in the world.
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Many people assume that all workplaces follow the traditional office layout: everyone works in one building, has access to a computer and can collaborate easily and effectively with each other. While this is true for many, industries such as healthcare, food service, retail and manufacturing have more offline workers, or people who don’t often work at a desk or use a computer. In addition, since the pandemic, there has been an increase in remote and hybrid workers who, while not completely offline, also do not fit into the traditional work environment.
As an employer, it is your responsibility to ensure that all of your employees are happy, productive and supported wherever they work. This requires a better understanding of the issues offline workers face and what you can do about them.
Three Common Problems for Non-Traditional Workers
Offline, remote and hybrid workers face specific challenges, and employees need to understand those issues so they can find the solutions that make everyone feel supported and valued.
1. Feelings of exclusion
When employees work from home or are busy all day, it’s easy to start feeling unsupported, left out, or even unimportant. In these scenarios, some employees may just do what is required of them and then leave without any meaningful interaction or collaboration.
For frontline employees, a feeling of disconnection is especially difficult. Because these employees usually don’t have a fixed schedule or work in a traditional office environment, they may miss out on business communications, social activities, and team building. So, frontline workers may feel like an isolated piece of a company machine rather than part of a larger community.
For full-time or part-time remote workers, studies show that they can easily feel shunned. They often lack the personal communication and social interactions that make them feel important and accepted. These feelings of insignificance or disapproval affect everything from interpersonal relationships to stress to productivity levels and retention.
2. Lack of involvement
Frontline employees invent around 80% of the US workforce, but only half of them understand their company’s strategy. That’s typical of deskless, offline employees, but if they’re not mentored and valued, it can mean a major drop in engagement. In addition, many frontline employees face more stress and burnout than their office cloister counterparts. And burnout quickly leads to – you guessed it – lower engagement.
Employees who work from home can struggle with similar issues. A study from Harvard Business Review found that two-thirds of remote workers aren’t very engaged, and a third never even get facetime with their team. That lack of interaction and support is a surefire way to increase detachment.
3. Loss of motivation
A loss of motivation goes hand in hand with burnout. Frontline workers are considered one of the least motivated types of employees. Whether it’s a sense of isolation or distraction, a lack of communication or not seeing the impact of their work, remote employees may have difficulty with motivation.
Recognition can help solve these problems
While business leaders have many different strategies they can implement to: raise morale, there is one thing that can make a huge difference: employee recognition. Recognition can have a huge impact on all employees, but it is especially effective for those who work in non-traditional conditions.
While employee recognition isn’t the panacea for all business challenges, it can completely change your employee experience and your corporate culture. Recognition increases productivity, retention levels, and happiness for everyone, but the heightened feelings of where the, motivation, engagement and trust are especially huge for offline, hybrid and remote workers.
Ways to recognize offline employees
As CEO of Awardco, I have a passion for making recognition as effective as possible. While employee recognition is a growing practice, many of the commonly used tools and strategies are primarily digital. Since most recognition platforms rely on social feeds, email or digital notifications to spread the love, offline employees are often left out.
Here are some non-digital ideas for recognizing those employees.
• Send a gift basket. A physical basket full of personalized goods can be the perfect way to identify offline, hybrid and remote employees. Because the gift goes to the employee’s home, it shows that you care about them outside of work too. As long as you take the time to choose gifts that the employee will love, this kind of recognition can convey your appreciation well.
• Offer local recognition. This is quite simple: recognize or congratulate employees the moment you see them. You may see a server that goes the extra mile or a cashier that helps clean up a spill; go ahead and give them a shout! If you know that a remote worker has recently had a child, you can send a direct congratulation. By giving genuine appreciation and sincere compliments, employees will feel seen.
• Issue recognition cards. Another proven method of recognition is the distribution of gift cards, certificates or even ordinary greeting cards. Physical cards of any kind are great options because they promote physical interaction and can include compliments or kind thoughts.
Every employee brings something to the table, wherever they work. Don’t let offline, hybrid, or remote workers feel left out. Try offline recognition methods to strengthen bonds and increase motivation.
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