Jason Z. Rose, MHSA, is CEO of AdhereHealth, an innovative technology company dedicated to transforming healthcare.
The remote-work debate is heating up once again. Most of the arguments still center around productivity concerns and whether people working from home are truly engaged.
Is having a remote workforce better for business? Based on my experience, I believe the answer is yes, but as I learned from my work in value-based care, the transformation takes time and effort.
Looking At Your Employee Engagement
Like many others, my company moved to a nearly 100% remote work model during the pandemic. Unfortunately, when we performed our annual employee engagement survey in 2021, we noticed a significant dip in our engagement and sentiment numbers. Results showed that 72% said they felt they could bring up problems and tough issues, and only 69% said they trusted leadership.
The problem was that we had abandoned—or failed to modify—many of our existing engagement efforts. Since then, we’ve completely committed to remote employee engagement, and our survey scores are better than ever. In our 2023 survey, the number of employees who feel comfortable bringing up problems and issues jumped to 89%, and 93% of the workers say they now trust leadership.
The spike in morale is also having a positive impact on business performance. I can’t promise the same results, but by focusing on engagement, our year-over-year revenue growth is already well past 50% for 2023—demonstrating that remote work can indeed bring business benefits to companies that embrace it.
Based on how my company was able to improve our engagement, here are some tips to help your organization experience similar results and ensure that your employees feel connected to your company—even when they never step foot in the office.
Reach Everyone Consistently
This is table stakes. And yet, for a time, my company wasn’t getting it right. Prior to the Covid-19 shutdown, we had held regular town hall meetings, but when workers went home, we just sort of stopped. That was a mistake and one that we recognized quickly. Make sure you are intentional about reaching all employees on a consistent basis, both through venues like quarterly town halls and monthly employee newsletters.
Listen
Communication can’t be one-way. Town halls give staff a chance to ask questions and hear updates from the company’s leadership. Another important initiative you might want to consider is something similar to my coffee with the CEO program. Every few weeks, I’ll meet online with half a dozen cross-departmental employees. We send them each a gift card to grab a coffee at Starbucks, and then we’ll get to know one another.
This kind of loose format in a meeting can be invaluable. This engagement not only gives employees the sense that their voices matter but also provides invaluable feedback that helps improve business. The employees have a unique opportunity to hear about other areas of the company and direct engagement with the CEO. At the end of these meetings, you’ll likely have pages of notes about how you can improve your business. After meetings like this, your staff should see actions taken nearly immediately; this can help give a sense of empowerment.
Facilitate Cross-Team Communication
I am happy with our decision to enable our employees to keep working from home, and I find that they’re generally at least as productive as they were in the office. But one big downside of remote work is that it eliminates those chance encounters—in the break room, at the water cooler, in the parking lot—where employees on different teams get to know each other.
Therefore, you now have to be intentional about creating as many opportunities as possible for this cross-team communication. Ideas include holding regular department meetings where important updates are addressed. Other quarterly meetings can encourage interactive dialogue on accomplishments and challenges the team is addressing.
Get People Together
Just because people aren’t working in the same office doesn’t mean they can’t spend time together in person. For employees who live near your headquarters, you can offer family fun days as well as team charitable volunteer opportunities. For example, recently, my company took 100 people to a minor-league baseball game. You can also have online fitness challenges, paid for through your health plan wellness program, where groups compete against each other for prizes.
Recognize Individuals
Just as it’s important to reach everyone, it’s also critical to recognize people individually. Make sure to acknowledge employees’ birthdays, work anniversaries and top performers. People need to know that their work is appreciated, and leaders sometimes overlook this when their employees aren’t in the office.
Provide Opportunities For Advancement
The era of career-long employment ended long ago. Today, most employees—especially top talent—will move on quickly if they see their job as a dead end. There’s no strict rule for this, but I like to make sure that at least around 50% of our leadership hires are internal promotions (with 50% outside talent to infuse new strategies).
Our head of software, for example, started with us as an entry-level patient engagement specialist, and now he’s an important IT leader at the company. It’s something that other employees notice. Our latest annual engagement survey showed a 29% jump since 2021 (from 50% to 79%) when asked if they believed they had the opportunity for career advancement.
Keep Improving
The workforce is changing quickly, and widespread remote work is new for many of us. We’re going to excel in some areas and make mistakes in others. But by tracking our performance through annual and frequent pulse employee engagement surveys, we can “fail fast” by acting on that data to continually refine our approach. Ensure that you’re meeting your employees’ needs and fostering a connected, productive workforce in order to maintain a high-growth, competitive company.
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