Adapting Performance Assessment and Compensation for Remote Workers

The COVID-19 pandemic has generated many changes and lots of uncertainty for organizations and their employees around the globe. It has created a need to rethink how to effectively change and run businesses remotely while still promoting strong employee engagement and commitment. This is essential as working from home may continue to be the ‘new normal’ way of working, even after the pandemic has passed. Leaders must now wrap their heads around how to ensure to maximize employee engagement as staff work remotely. Key areas they will need to address are how to ensure their employee performance assessments and pay structure reflect this new way of working.

New Considerations for Assessing Remote Workers

Existing evaluation processes were not designed for the virtual workplace. Now that work is being done differently, organizations need to rethink the types of behaviors they wish to reward. It is imperative for leaders to stress the importance of employees producing quality work versus a lot of work which may not meet their requisite standards.

A focus on output can lead to the unintended consequence of employees cutting corners to meet quotas. Instead, a value should be placed on qualities they wish their employees to emulate. Important soft skills such as flexibility and the ability to work well independently with minimal supervision may become priorities. Timely feedback is essential. Given the many changes and uncertainties created by the pandemic, leaders need to focus on ensuring they build in ongoing and frequent communication to meet with and support their remote workers.

Rewarding Employees Differently

Compensating remote workers also requires a fundamental change in thinking. Businesses will need to reflect on the equally important aspect as how to best pay and reward their employees to keep them happy, satisfied and fully engaged. Besides money, things to consider are non-financial ways to reward employees, like unpaid time off, flexible work schedules and stipends to cover expenses setting up a home office.

There are many factors that can determine how much a company is willing to pay its remote workers. Often these are determined by the industry they are in, the position, the level of employees’ skills as well as years of service. Much like the recent rise of working from home, remote work statistics around pay structure are still very much a work in progress.n

Engaging and Compensating Employees in a New Environment

Remote work is shifting how employers think and deal with all the aspects of this new way of working. They are beginning to realize that remote work is not less productive than working in an office. Research is demonstrating that there is a positive correlation in increased productivity associated with working from home. One study found that employees are productive 75 per cent of the time while working from home as compared to 63 percent of the time in the office.

It is time for business leaders to their work environment and employee engagement through a new paradigm. They must identify new ways to measure work performance and create the appropriate mechanisms to compensate their remote workers accordingly.

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