How to Keep Your Team Productive While Working from Home

One of the challenges with working from home is maintaining productivity. Without the routines, daily practices, and resources our offices offer, even the best of us can drift in and out of the right headspace when we’re working remotely.

It’s crucial, therefore, that you know how to keep your team engaged and productive – wherever they’re working. You still have quotas to meet and KPIs to work towards as you find your way through this new way of working.

You want your Team to have the same experience, whether they’re working from home or in-office agents, of course, and want both groups to be equally productive. So, how do you help your agents stay as productive while working remotely as you did when you were with them in the office every day??

Let’s walk through tips and resources you can share with your agents to help them be productive working from home:

1. Pay close attention to your Team’s mental health

Maintaining mental health while working remotely is vital to staying productive. It can be easy for remote employees to think, “now I can stay in my PJs all day.” (And some days, for some people, this might be exactly the key to their productivity).

Without the need to commute to work, it might be tempting for you and your team to sleep in longer than you normally would, to skip breakfast and maybe even lunch, or to stress snack on tubes of Pringles from bed all day. But this kind of approach won’t help your team in the long term, nor will it improve the customer experience!?

Last year proved that, properly managed, working from home can work really well. Employees can stay productive and many of them actually feel more comfortable working from home (all of which will improve their results).

As a leader though, you will still have to keep an eye on your team to help them maintain the level of productivity we previously saw when they worked in the office. Feeling isolated and disconnected takes its toll on your agents’ health and their performance. So, keeping their mental health at the forefront of your mind is the first step in keeping your team productive, while working from home.??Try and "socialise" working from home as much as possible. If there's one thing most people miss from the office, it's the informal chats and catch-ups over a coffee, where people relax with each other, discuss football (or Rugby in my case) results, and just generally socialise. If this is completely missed whilst working remotely, then a feeling of isolation can start to creep in, affecting mental health, service quality, and productivity. Just call people to say hi, and see how they're doing with no reference to work at all - that'll be a great start.

2. Encourage your agents to say ‘hi’

Having your agents call into a Teams meeting with you at the beginning of their shift might seem an obvious suggestion. But ask yourself, do they actively take part, or listen passively? Are they encouraged to switch cameras on and show that they are ready for a working day or simply given instructions via blank screens?

You can use this time to go over priorities for the day and they can also use it to check in with their peers. This not only holds agents accountable at the start of their day but will also keep your team connected, no matter where they’re working.?

3. Talk with agents about their designated workspace

When your agents work from home, it helps if they can still feel like they’re going to the office. Not to mention, it’s better for the customer experience, too.

One of the biggest challenges I find, working from home every day, is the necessity to separate the rest of your life from your work-day. It’s hard for your team to plug into work and it’s even harder to end the workday if their computers are just sitting there, next to their bed, on the kitchen table, or by the couch. The key to making it feel like you’re really at work is to set aside an “office space” (that, where at all possible, doesn’t include the bed!).?

A while back, a survey was conducted by customer experience experts on the challenges of work-from-home call centres, and one thing that was mentioned time after time was home office infrastructure. They saw everything from terrible internet speeds to dogs barking in the background of customer calls, and that wasn’t even during the school holidays! There really are hundreds of potential distractions, and minimising their impact will drastically improve both performance, quality, and the customer experience.

4. Remind your agents to take breaks

We all worry about being unproductive when working from home. There’s pressure to be online, proving you’re getting stuff done at all times. But, think for a moment about the downtime your agents need to recharge.?

We know that in any workplace with peers, chunks of the day are, on paper, unproductive. If they were in the office, agents would be spending time in conversation with one another, building relationships, joking around, walking to get a snack, or refilling their water bottle at the cooler.

At home, your agents don’t have this kind of comradery. Sometimes, we hit walls when we’re alone all day working from home. But this doesn’t mean your team isn’t productive.?

They just miss out on the organic distractions and breaks that come with working in an office – many of which are healthy breaks from the stress of daily interactions. Your agents need this downtime to keep performance high.

How to help your agents find connections:

It’s important to let your agents take breaks when they need them. It can be easy to hit a mental wall when you’re stuck at home all day. It’s ok for your team members to get up and take a brief walk outside (fresh air can feel like it’s life-changing). Let your agents know it’s okay to ask for flexibility. And then, give them that flexibility when it’s possible. It encourages your agents to find balance, so they can be available and focused for your customers when they need to be.

The top 5 issues with remote workspaces:?

• Poor call quality and screen lag
• Slow internet speeds
• No privacy or dedicated working space
• Too many distractions?
• Too much background noise/lack of noise-canceling

To keep your agents productive at home, you should talk to them and try to help them remedy any of these challenges they might be facing.?

How to help your agents create the best at-home workspace:?

Encourage your agents to structure their day around a spot in their house that holds their work-related responsibilities. Maybe it’s a dining room table or a desk set up in their guest room. I’ve even heard of people turning their wardrobes into mini offices. It’s important to have a place separated from distractions so they can get into a work mindset every day.

Encourage your agents to create a home office in a place they can feel productive. Encourage them to reduce clutter, find a space that’s quiet, and set it up with good lighting. Use surveys to see what’s dragging your agents down, so you can fix it for them (and for your customers).