By: Mitchell Gold, Managing Director and Senior Advisor, HR Consulting IHS-Surveys, and Caryn Siebert, VP Carrier Engagement – Gallagher Bassett

Telework or remote working is not a novel concept. Between 2005 and 2015, the number of U.S. employees who work remotely increased dramatically. In 2019, more than 26 million Americans—about 16% of the total workforce—worked remotely at least part of the time, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. But as COVID-19 surged, so too did the number of companies asking their employees to work from home.

Successfully managing a remote workforce does not happen by accident. Recent data-gathering efforts have documented many of the challenges that remote workers face. Barriers include factors such as lack of face-to-face supervision, lack of access to work information shared interpersonally, and social isolation. Researchers have learned that contributors to isolation include absence from traditional office environments, lack of such critical growth factors as interpersonal networking and limited access to informal learning and mentoring.There is even risk of remote employees feeling disengaged and leaving the organization.

Gallagher Bassett’s teleworking program has been thriving for years because we have focused on a blend of several C words which are all part and parcel of our successful, diverse and sustainable workforce. Culture, Communication, Connectivity, Colleagues and Constituents. 

We then include / mix-in management and quality assurance tools, like our operational quality dashboard and dynamic reporting, to ensure exceptional service to our Clients and their Claimants.

Finding the best fit for remote work

The “fit” of the individual to the role represents a significant complexity in attempting to ensure engagement and effectiveness of remote workers. A decade ago, organizations considering remote work may have had the luxury of more time when making such evaluations. Many of these evaluations had more to do with decreasing brick and mortar real estate costs. Now in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, nearly over night, organizations find that the remote workforce decision has been made for them. Jobs that require a knowledge-worker component may naturally work better as a telecommuting role, such as we have in the world of insurance.

At Gallagher Bassett (as well as our parent and sister companies) we have been at the forefront of teleworking and hiring resolution managers to work remotely around the globe. This has afforded us the opportunity to hire the best candidates for roles regardless of location.  It has also enabled us to retain employees who relocate due to personal preference and the needs of other family members yielding higher employee retention and satisfaction scores for years.

Key to our success is driving engagement, assuring customer satisfaction, and delivering demonstrably superior outcomes.

Time and time again, communication arises as a theme in a variety of ways.  At Gallagher Bassett, having regularly standing meetings on the calendar is paramount.  One-on-one coaching; unit or team level meetings; and even large loss reviews can make things easier, account for different time zones, and assure alignment. If the meeting becomes unnecessary, it’s always easier to take it off the calendar than scramble to coordinate one.

Aspects of Remote Work Experience that Drive Engagement

What motivates individuals to perform in these remote work environments? Mitch Gold and his team at Gallagher sought to understand what, if any differences may exist in the motivators or aspects of the work experience that drive engagement in traditional work environments versus those in a remote work environment. 

Characteristics of Successful Remote Workers

It’s helpful to review the characteristics of engaged employees. They are:

  • A strong sense of job satisfaction and proud to work at their organization
  • Willing to put in extra effort and can see how that tie into the organization’s success
  • Compelled by the organization’s mission
  • Willing to promote the organization as a great place to work
  • Not seriously considering other opportunities outside of the organization

Gallagher’s employee engagement survey team has worked with hundreds of organizations across numerous industries including healthcare, energy, technology, financial services, and manufacturing, among others, to better understand the specific employee experience factors that positively impact and improve engagement. 

Recognizing Impactful Drivers of Remote Workers

Every organization is unique, and factors of employment experience can affect engagement differently. Examples Mitch Gold and his team found include how the organization rewards its employees, how teamwork and collaboration are supported, the degree to which career pathing is clear, the emphasis on quality and safety, and a variety of others. In a large healthcare organization of over 18,000 employees, Gallagher’s survey team found that for more traditional, in-person roles, the most impactful drivers of engagement included:

  1. Loving the opportunity to work for the organization
  2. Growth and development opportunities
  3. Feeling challenged to do one’s best, not being able to imagine working anywhere else, and
  4. Strongly recommending the organization as a place for those needing care

When Gallagher’s survey team examined roles in which employees performed in a remote environment, they found some interesting shifts. Specifically, the most significant work experience factors to remote workers’ engagement included the supervisor’s manager displaying principles that guide behavior in the organization; employees working well together to provide high quality service; and receiving context and reasons for major changes in the employee’s work group.

These findings have important implications for leaders:

  • Remote workers need a sense of structure, boundaries and expectations from their managers and “what these leaders stand for and expect.”
  • When changes occur in the organization, employees must feel connected and in the loop when shifts occur in the work environment that affect the team and potentially the employee’s role in that team.
  • Working remotely actually drives the need for employees to feel like their work makes a difference in providing a high quality experience to customers.

Next Steps / Conclusion

Given the Gallagher survey team findings, managers can play a key role in driving connection and engagement with remote workers. Several practices can set your organization up for success with a remote workforce:

  1. Equip managers for success. The organization must recognize that managers need a different set of skills to manage a remote workforce than those needed to manage a workforce down the hallway. Providing training and resources to managers specific to remote workers can support managers in leading from a distance. Consider establishing a manager to manager networking group so that the managers can learn from and support each other.
  2. Establish a check-in routine for all remote employees. With a remote workforce we are unable to connect in a break room or walk into someone’s office for a quick hello. Managers need to establish frequent check-ins intentionally, both one-on-one as well as in a team setting, to drive connection. Check-ins should cover a variety of conversation topics not just about workload and performance. For example, start remote meetings asking everyone to share both a personal and professional high point. Create a habit of dedicating the first five minutes of a meeting to this type of chatter to strengthen team engagement.
  3. Use a variety of communication options for check-ins, team meetings and organization-wide announcements to keep employees connected to the organization’s goals and current on changes. Communicating frequently with transparency, honesty and empathy can make remote workers feel connected. Leverage technology such as conference calls, video conferencing, chat functions, emails and intranet sites. Frequent training on how to use technology tools is critical.
  4. Set clear expectations for employee and manager performance. Establish start and end times for the workday, response time to emails, and availability–all are potentially different when teams are not face-to-face at the worksite. Each employee and manager situation may vary, so be flexible where possible and appropriate. For some workers, their workday may start earlier or end later due to time zones or other personal circumstances. Establish and communicate a schedule between the manager and the employees so that everyone functions under the same expectations.
  5. Acknowledge and intentionally foster the culture you desire. Success may require extra effort with a remote workforce. Communicate openly about the vision of the company, carefully articulate changes, offer support tools for employee well-being, encourage team work and social interaction, as well as create opportunities for fun. These steps may need additional creativity and focus to engage a remote workforce.

At Gallagher Bassett we recently held a guitar concert before Memorial Day Weekend with employees tweeting their WFH photos to #lifeatgallagher. 

Remote conference calls can turn into walking, treadmill meetings. We also share photos of home office set-ups and “co-workers” (like kids, roommates, and four-legged friends) on GB Engage (our intranet). Think about employee birthday celebrations and other personal milestones to celebrate with a team virtual happy hour.

Taking the steps to carefully consider how to engage and connect with your remote workforce is an important component of driving employee well-being and overall organizational wellbeing. We invite you to contact Mitch about Gallagher Better Works where we have strategies and can help you take action steps to make your organization better every day.

RISE Award nominations are open through May 31st 2020. Check out our short interview with 2017 winner John Lupfer who is Director of Claims for Suffolk Construction.

WEAR THE PAJAMAS. DON’T PUT ON YOUR MAKEUP. TAKE 30 MINUTES TO BROWSE THE INTERNET. SAY YES AND PLAY WITH THE KIDS FOR A MINUTE.  EAT THE SNACKS.

Enjoy the freedoms and don’t be so hard on yourself. Life isn’t perfect right now, and you don’t have to be either.

The kids are screaming, your cat threw up on the floor, your boss wants ANOTHER zoom meeting. And you can barely keep it together. Life isn’t the same during a pandemic, and you can’t expect all the tips about how someone with childcare (or childless) and a nice home office works from home to translate to you.  I know that companies are doing their best to help new work from home employees be successful, but not all advice is practical. 

Do what is right for you. 

Dress up in your regular clothes for work.

If you don’t have any client facing meetings, don’t feel pressure to get dressed up. If you could use those extra 20 minutes to get more work done or finish the day early, do it. Someone wants an impromptu video call? Get comfortable in being your authentic self, just make sure you have something on! 

Set regular work hours and stick to them.

If you don’t have time sensitive meetings and calls and have some work that can be done on discretionary time, don’t feel like it needs to be done during 9-5. Shift your hours to where you feel more productive.  Take a break in the middle of the day to play with your kids/dog or do an online workout or just have a mental break and pick up that work later. You’ll come back feeling refreshed and more productive.

Trying to set a rigid schedule around work time can almost be as stressful as not having any set time.  Instead of making a schedule, think smaller steps like creating an “end time” for your day. Agree with your partner (or yourself) when the workday is over so you both have healthy expectations of when you’ll be done.  Figure out what makes you more productive. Is it working one hour on each task then switch? Is it spending 2 hours straight then a 30-minute break? Find a rhythm and call it a “flexible routine,” NOT rigid schedule. Say it with me, “flexible routine.”

Don’t turn on the TV, social media, let your kids watch YouTube all day.

Do you normally have screen time goals for yourself or limits for your kids?  Guess what, screen time is up, and I didn’t have to check your app to know. Are you a bad parent? No. Is this going to permanently affect your kid’s development in the long run? No.  Will you finally get an hour of work done while they play on the iPad/watch tv? Yes. Now don’t feel guilty about it.

Find yourself looking at social media more? We are all craving the connection to friends, family, and coworkers that we haven’t had for over a month. It’s ok to take a break and talk to a friend. Be mindful of your time, and when your break is over, go back to work.  Am I saying spend all day on Facebook? Not at all. Just don’t beat yourself up for needing some social interaction.

Eat healthy and don’t snack all day.

Some people are planners and others are not.  If you weren’t good at meal prep before, no one expects you to be an overnight sensation.  Want a snack? Go for it. Are you actually hungry or just procrastinating? If you’re just procrastinating, no judgment. Realize it, take your break, and get back to it. Some of us miss that walk to the watercooler or the breakroom for a cup of coffee. There’s no shame in being human.

Worried about putting on extra weight? So is everyone else without access to a gym or their normal routine and food options. This is temporary. In my experience, creating rules against eating certain things only makes you crave them more. I ate a granola bar, some fruit, and a yogurt trying to avoid the cookie, but still want the cookie and ate 3x the calories.  Do your best but realize that mental health is just as important.  Don’t allow it to become an obsession. Eat the cookie.

How do you stay connected/ homeschool a child/ be just as productive as you are at the office/ be healthy/ and not stress out every day?

You don’t. Take a deep breath and realize that there is an adjustment period.  Try different things. See what works for you.  Some days you’ll get more work done than you have in a week and others you might do less. Some days you’ll feel like you have this whole work/life balance down and others you’ll barely remember to shower.  Instead of counting cups of coffee, you are counting coffee pots. Is breakfast ok for dinner? Today it is. Do we just need to order takeout and take a break from doing dishes? Sure. Do you really want to join another 20 person video chat happy hour? I don’t know, do you?

In all practicality, make a list of the most important things you need to do, go outside and take a breath of fresh air, and call and talk to a friend/family member/co-worker. Most of all, be gentle on yourself!