Maintaining employee engagement while working remotely

It happened in April every year. At the end of a full-on, productive day, I’d point my car towards home. The sun was shining on the first warm day of the year and every tune the DJ played shouted ‘here comes the summer!’.

For me as a remote, customer-facing sales professional, those moments hold a special place in my memory. They had nothing to do with what company leadership did, said or how they made me feel, but what got me through the long wet, windy, winters was largely down to them.

Pharma had a magnificent, motivated and engaged remote workforce at least 30 years before the pandemic. What the pandemic did was expose a new group of people to the big question of remote working: how do you keep people engaged when you don’t see them every day?

The truth is pharma can see how to do that by looking back over its shoulder.

Now, I appreciate I’m wearing the rose-tinted spectacles of nostalgia when I recall what my own sales managers said, did and how they made me feel, but it was super simple. They made time to connect with me (and my teammates, too) as a human being, so they truly understood what I wanted and needed, where I was going, how I was doing and what was on my mind. They:

• Recognised and celebrated effort as well as results
• Set clear goals and expectations
• Encouraged autonomy and self-determination
• Helped when it was needed

When people do great work, share it, and remember to share more than the outcome. Tell the story.

Humans started writing stories down around 200 BC and had been telling stories for around 30,000 years before that. Stories are part of human evolution, so stories with emotion are part of human connection.

So when you want to celebrate someone, tell their story of blood, sweat and tears; and the challenges they faced and overcame, not just the result.

And keep it real. People love a hero, but a teammate with superpowers won’t always build a sense of belonging.

Which is most important, the results we delivered or the way we went about them?

Try drawing a four-box grid with ‘What was achieved’ up the side and ‘How it came about’ along the bottom, then see in which box you put the Olympic drug cheat.

Yes, minimum behaviour standards are important and micro-management can demotivate, so be clear about behaviour standards, then leave your team alone to get on with the work.

Dan Pink said: ‘Control leads to compliance; autonomy leads to engagement.’

Autonomy goes a long way in a remote setting.

Goal clarity doesn’t end with goal setting.

Most people know about SMART goals: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, Timebound. However, remote teams need extra goal-setting effort and support, so give SMART a wee tweak.

Pedro Lichtinger, Chairman and CEO of Starton Therapeutics, told me in 2007 that a leader’s first job is to help their people deliver their goals. He didn’t mean set easy goals, but rather to make sure they have the resources they need to deliver them: the hardware, knowledge, skills, opportunity and motivation.

So, try replacing the R of SMART with ‘Resourced’.

If a team member is tracking off target, the leader’s question is ‘what do you need to get back on track?’. The earlier you ask, the smaller the gap in both performance and required resource. Regular and frequent human connection that focuses on business performance sends a clear and powerful message: we are on the same team, and we want the same win.

Employee engagement surveys completed on wet, windy, winter afternoons may give different results than on bright, sunny, spring mornings. And the one leadership opportunity that’s permanently available throughout the seasons is to make regular, frequent, authentic human connection with the people who work remotely, and keep it at (close to) the top of the to-do list.