What is a long-term remote work plan, and do you need one?

The coronavirus pandemic has ushered in a new era Remote work ushered in: Companies sent their employees home from the office to complete a variety of tasks, and an overwhelming number of employees want the option to work remotely indefinitely.

While many companies have moved to remote work out of sheer necessity, the pandemic has proven one thing: Remote work functions. Remote workers are often more productive and happier, which can help companies attract and retain top talent. Additionally, the ability to recruit workers from across the country—not just your company's immediate geographic area—can expand the applicant pool. By eliminating the need to be there in person, recruiting teams can source the best talent from around the world to strengthen their business.

Remote workers can also be a financial boon for businesses: Office space is expensive - and foregoing a physical workspace means eliminating mortgages, monthly rent and overhead costs, freeing up resources to reinvest in the business.

And companies with remote workforces have found that they are getting more work from their employees. Instead of a long commute, employees sit down at the computer earlier and can work longer. In recent months, productivity in companies has increased to an unprecedented extent.

With all of these clear benefits - and employees' clear desire to continue working remotely - it's no wonder that many companies are considering making their remote work options permanent. To achieve this, they need a long-term remote work plan.

A long-term remote work plan is a detailed plan that describes how a company will manage its remote workforce over the long term - not just a few weeks or months. A good plan will clearly identify expectations for remote workers and what systems should be put in place to optimize communication when employees work remotely.

It would also create a balance between productivity, health and well-being and provide a path to Career development and promotion in order to keep employees happy, productive and loyal to the company.

Any company that wants to adopt remote work permanently needs a long-term remote work plan, these experts say. Here's what a good long-term remote work plan entails and how to create one.

Ask your employees for feedback

The first step in creating a long-term remote work plan (e.g. in the Switzerland ) is to figure out what's currently working for your remote forces - and what's not. Identify the biggest issues your company has faced since transitioning to remote work by actively asking your employees for feedback and finding the perfect tools, clouds, and software to optimize the new processes and iron out any kinks. Use an anonymous survey to get the opinion of the entire workforce. Ask your employees what they want from their remote workplace, what kind of reward and incentive systems they would like to have, how often they would like to exchange information about their professional careers, and what ideas they have for company development or improvements.

However, once your plan is in place, your company should continue to collect employee feedback.

Have regular conversations with your workforce to see how they are adapting and to hear their suggestions for improving the remote work structure. Ultimately, they are the ones who live and let this change live. So you are in the best position to make recommendations that contribute to a positive vision for long-term remote work.

Set clear rules and expectations for work hours

An excellent long-term remote work plan sets rules and expectations for work hours so that employees don't burn out at home. Establish a schedule that supports healthy and motivated employees while maximizing productivity. Your plan could e.g. For example, set the times at which employees should respond to emails so that they don't feel like they have to be "on call" at any time of the day or night. Or you could create a policy that prohibits holding multiple Zoom meetings in a row so that employees don't become overwhelmed by screen time. The companies that get this right will attract the best talent.

If you're recruiting top talent from across the country, your employees may live in different time zones, and determining when they should work is important to your long-term remote work plan. Your working hours should at least partially overlap with those of the rest of the team.

Provide team building opportunities

One thing that's often missing from remote workers is connection team members . A good long-term remote work plan ensures that employees build positive relationships with one another.

One thing that is often missing with remote workers is connection with team members. A good long-term remote work plan ensures that employees build positive relationships with one another.

To do this, consider what is already important to your employees. For example, if your employees value face-to-face conversations, your plan should include regular, weekly virtual calls to discuss work and other matters. And as pandemic restrictions ease, you can plan opportunities for in-person gatherings, such as monthly meetings for team-building activities like bowling or trivia nights, he says.

Support your employees with comfortable workspaces

Not all of your employees will have their own office. During the pandemic, the kitchen table or small coffee table has all too often become the defacto office desk. For parents of younger children, this transition was challenging as they had to simultaneously play teacher and babysitter while trying to manage the day-to-day responsibilities of their jobs.

And while working from the kitchen table may work for some workers in the short term, it shouldn't be part of your long-term remote work plan. Instead, the best long-term remote work plans allow employees to work productively at home.

Have open conversations with your employees to learn more about their work from home environment and ask them how you can improve their work from home situation. For example, you could provide noise-cancelling headphones or ergonomic chairs, or even subsidize membership to a co-working space where employees can work in peace.

Create a new, redesigned onboarding process

If you employ remote workers, it's time to change your onboarding process and make it part of your long-term remote work plan. When it comes to personal employees, most companies had a checklist of tasks that they completed one by one when they welcomed a new employee into the company. In most cases, however, this process does not translate as well to virtual onboarding, partly because with a remote workforce, more emphasis must be placed on introducing employees to their colleagues. What was once taken for granted—sitting with a new group for lunch or sitting with someone in their office while you're briefed on company protocols—should now be a priority.

Your long-term plan for the Remote work should therefore focus on culturally integrating them into the company and its employees with a new, remote-friendly onboarding process.

While your company may have previously spent more time on on-the-job training, now it's equally about inclusion. To make new team members feel welcome and comfortable with people outside of their immediate team or department, the onboarding process should be a priority to ensure that the company culture is ingrained and spread among your remote workers.

Of course, you can't forget about training entirely, and your long-term remote work plan should have one Onboarding process with training elements. Sanchez suggests that larger companies set up automated teaching modules and assign new employees a mentor who can answer one-off questions; Smaller companies, she says, can use mentors for anything.

Get your employees excited about your plan

Once you have a long-term plan for remote work in place, it's time to get your employees on board.

Although the majority of employees have adapted well to the remote work structure, some still miss and prefer face-to-face contact. It takes a little more convincing to get this segment of the population to embrace long-term remote work, but there are some strategies you can use to get your employees excited about the possibilities of this era.

For example, your company could offer incentives for working from home, such as a subsidy for cell phone costs or childcare. Or, your company might consider planning annual offsite trips for high-performing or new employees working from home where they can work and relax together. If you recognize your employees' hard work and take them to an exotic location, that's certainly not a bad thing. Continuing this journey throughout the work year will help those who are unsure about their ability to embrace remote work knowing that reward is coming.