5 Tips on Retaining a Remote Team

High turnover rates are a huge headache for any company or business, not to mention a waste of time and money. We’ve talked about the costs of bad hires and vacant positions. That’s why it’s important to make sure you’re hiring a remote team that will stay with you for a long time.

But with the added challenges of remote work, how can you ensure you don’t just build a team but retain it? Here’s how:

Hire the right people

This sounds obvious enough, but what does it really mean? Apart from a person’s qualifications and hard skills for the job, it’s important to also gauge if their personality is a good fit for the company. You won’t find this on resumés and only becomes clear during the interview process. Don’t hire people who you think you can mold to fit with your company’s values, instead go for the ones who already align with them. This ensures they’ll fit right in, you won’t have to worry about changing their mindset, and they won’t have to think about leaving someday because they’re unhappy with the work environment.

Find people who value what you already offer, whether that’s flexibility of schedule, autonomy on work responsibilities, or mentorship for professional development.

Have a standardized onboarding process

Did you know that 20% of turnover happens during the first 45 days of employment? And that 33% start looking for a new job within the first six months?

That’s why the onboarding process is so important, even more so in a remote setting. Your new hire needs to know the company’s work processes, its goals, log-in access to apps, documents they should be familiar with, the whole team and their roles, and more. Standardizing means outlining all those steps and assigning it to someone on the team. This makes everything efficient for you and your team and clear for the new hire.

Promote a healthy team culture

A healthy company culture has always positively correlated with higher employee engagement, higher productivity, and higher employee retention. It’s especially important to remote workers since working from home can blur the lines of a work-life balance and not to mention not being able to engage with your colleagues face to face can make workers feel lonely.

Regular video calls with the whole team can help alleviate this, remind your employees that they’re part of a team, and that their contributions are important.

You can also promote non-work conversations like channels specifically just for pets or music, or host team-building activities like after work drinks or playing games.

Coach and nurture your team

Invest in your employees’ professional development by giving them opportunities to learn and grow. A nurturing mentorship can be very effective to some workers and makes them feel valued, allowing for their loyalty to your company. Moreover, they gain new abilities that will be critical to your business’s development.

Taking the time to train your employees or pay for the time they take to learn a course are some examples of how to nurture them.

Keep your promises

A big reason for employees to stay is trust in management. It’s a no-brainer that whatever incentive or promise made them take the job in the first place, they expect you to make good on it. If you fall through with your promises, it sends the message of inconsistency and that you are not listening to them. They will feel unappreciated and will seek opportunities elsewhere.

If you promise a flexible schedule, absolutely no work or contact on weekends, mentorship, whatever it may be, it must be kept. Of course, there will be situations where backing out of a promise is inevitable, like a sudden lack of resources. What’s important is to communicate this well to your employer and find a way to make up for it.