Questions to Ask Remote Employees

It’s no secret that 2020 brought change for every business. One way that business owners have adapted to a socially distant world is by having their employees work remote, one of many new quarantine business trends. While we may have thought this was a temporary fix at first, working from home is now the new normal and it’s time for all of us to adapt! As an IT services provider, Forbin has worked with countless companies to set up a 100% remote workforce and we’ve learned a thing or two along the way. Here are a few questions to ask remote employees that will help streamline your processes and improve employee morale.

1. How comfortable are you with your remote technology?

• What issues do you run into frequently?
• What equipment or processes would improve your day-to-day work?

Purpose of these questions: environmental analysis. This group of questions will show you who is adapting to remote life and who is still struggling, and hopefully explain why. Some people may be slow to adjust to a completely new way of doing work which will require more attention and even one-on-one training. Others may have issues that are as simple as updating their technology from a small-screen iPad to a laptop. If you need to update your hardware or software, let’s chat. We’ve got great remote solutions like Dell XPS and Dell Latitude laptops.

2.What is your daily routine?

• What hours of the day are you most productive?
• What energizes you and what drains you while working from home?
• What do you do to regain energy?

Purpose of these questions: energy management. Help employees establish boundaries so they can improve efficiency. This helps your bottom line and lets employees spend time recharging outside of work. When you don’t see your employees in person every day, it’s extremely difficult to gauge morale. Make sure you’re direct, but also empathetic when asking these questions to help foster a productive response. Based on their response, work with your employee to find a workday routine that will help them succeed. As long as you know what schedule they commit to, you can hold them accountable for doing their work while also being supportive!

3. How do you feel about current communication on the team?

• Do you feel that you have too much communication with the team, too little or just the right amount?
• What’s your preferred method of communication?
• Are our meetings remote-friendly and productive?

Purpose of these questions: communication culture. The smaller the team, the easier it is to adjust your communication culture based on these responses. Unfortunately, it’s almost impossible to get communication just right for a larger team, but there’s a silver lining. Take the negative and positive responses to establish a communication culture. Write your communication culture guidelines down and share it with your team so everyone has the same communication expectations. Setting shared expectations is a great start to improving communication on your team.

We hope these questions make a difference for you and your team! If you discover that your team needs to streamline processes or improve technology after a survey of your remote work solutions, we have you covered. Just fill out our form below and one of our IT analysts will be in touch for a free IT consult.