How to Engage Remote Employees: 10 tips from a fully-remote team

Keeping employees engaged and appreciated is essential not only for retention but also for overall productivity and success. Yet, according to Gallup, only 31% of US employees are actively engaged. So how can you make sure that your team doesn’t fall into the remaining 69%? After nearly five years as a fully remote company, we’ve learned a lot, and we’re excited to share our best engagement tips and tricks.

In this article, we’ll dive into ten evidence-based strategies for boosting engagement. And it’s not just our experience— we’re sharing the stats to back it up!

Jump ahead:

• Animoto’s story
• What employee engagement means
• Why employee engagement is important
• 10 tips to increase remote employee engagement

Who are we?

So why should you listen to us? Animoto has been around for over fifteen years and counting. We began as a startup with a New York office. As we grew, we became known for an extremely bright and quirky band of employees. We held team meetings in our Game of Thrones-themed rooms, hosted countless parties, open mics, and workshops.

Over the years we stayed at the forefront of all things video and served millions of video creators across the globe, and we have our company culture and engaged employees to thank for it. Then, as you might guess, the Covid-19 pandemic changed everything. Just like the thousands of other companies across the globe, we had to find new ways to engage our employees without in-person game nights or happy hours.

But we like it here! Today, we are a fully-remote company and team of highly engaged people. We know what it takes to reach and stir up engagement in all of our employees, and we see the impacts of this engagement every day. And we want to share it with you!

So buckle in and we’ll share our top ten tips for stellar remote employee engagement.

What employee engagement means

Employee engagement comes down to two things: commitment and enthusiasm.When you engage your employees, you foster a sense of alignment with your organization’s purpose and goals. This connection goes beyond tasks and responsibilities—your team becomes emotionally invested in achieving success. It’s about fostering a positive connection between employees and their workplace so they become more invested, motivated, and aligned with the company’s goals.

Engaged employees:

• Have positive attitudes
• Collaborate with others
• Are reliable and responsible
• Exceed expectations
• Communicate effectively
• Come up with innovative solutions
• Seek personal and professional development opportunities
• Adapt to change well
• Reduce turnover
• Make great brand ambassadors

Why employee engagement is important

It’s easy to see how these qualities of engaged employees can make them better workers and team players, and their importance cannot be understated. Employee engagement is crucial for business success, with studies showing that companies with highly engaged teams are 23% more profitable than those with disengaged employees.

Why? High engagement fosters better communication, collaboration, and productivity company-wide, which are vital in overcoming the isolation and disconnectedness that remote employees can often feel. This, in turn, boosts morale, helps employees feel valued, and leads to higher satisfaction and performance levels company-wide.

It’s a true win-win, and we’ll show you how to achieve it.

Check out the 10 employee engagement tips below, each backed by real-world examples and statistics. Then, put them to play in your business with the #1 tool for remote businesses – video! Let’s dive in.

10 tips for engaging remote employees

1. Foster Open Communication

Communication is everything. No matter your industry, goals, or even if your company is fully remote or not, communication underscores every one of your business goals. According to the Harris Poll’s State of Business Communication survey, 72% of business leaders believe that effective communication has increased their team’s productivity, and 52% of workers agreed.

But it’s not just productivity – despite the physical distance, consistent and transparent communication can help you and your team feel connected and aligned with your company's goals. For remote workforces, this advantage is even more crucial.

Regular check-ins, open channels for feedback, and accessible information all contribute to an environment where remote employees feel engaged, valued, and empowered to do their best work. Utilize tools like email, Slack, and Teams for casual check-ins and live video conferencing for important discussions. For larger changes and announcements that require additional buy-in or detail, consider sending detailed how-to videos and explainers. Then, encourage two-way feedback by hosting a virtual Q&A session.

2. Set Clear Expectations and Goals

It’s easy for things to get lost in translation online. Unlike in-office settings, remote workers can’t rely on spontaneous check-ins or immediate guidance. That’s why it’s even more essential to set clear expectations and goals.

In a study conducted by Forrester, 50% of employees reported that goal clarity gives them a greater sense of purpose and motivates them to do daily work.

Now for the know-how. Begin with clear, measurable goals that directly support your company’s objectives. Then, utilize tools like project management software and shared digital dashboards so team members can work independently and see how their work contributes to larger goals. From day one, you can build a solid foundation by creating a detailed onboarding process filled with informative and engaging videos. Think mission and vision explainers, how-tos, demos, and guides. This, paired with a centralized knowledge base, also reinforces consistency in expectations.

To reinforce and re-engage your team beyond onboarding and kickoffs, make sure to set up multiple check ins. You can communicate asynchronously with pre-recorded weekly update videos or schedule recurring meetings. The most important thing is to always reference your overarching goals and ensure that each action gets you a little bit closer to them.

3. Encourage Work-Life Balance

It might seem counterintuitive, but providing your teams with greater flexibility and more time devoted to their personal lives can make them more present and productive at work. A study found that employees are 86% more productive and 57% more likely to stick with their company during challenging times.

Remote work is inherently more flexible than traditional office-based work, but there are things you can do to better support your employees’ work-life balance. At Animoto, we have what we call our “core working hours” when everyone is expected to be online and available for meetings, usually 11-4 PM EST. The rest of the eight-hour work day is left to each employee’s discretion. You can create a similar culture by respecting working hours, being transparent about your own breaks, and encouraging your team to take breaks as needed. Quarter over quarter and even year over year, work-life balance pays off.

4. Give recognition where recognition is due

If you follow the tips above, this one should be a no-brainer. As you continue to check in and communicate with employees, you can also use this as an opportunity to give some much-needed recognition. According to Gallup, employees who receive regular recognition are four times more likely to be engaged. Four times!

There are lots of ways to celebrate employee achievements, both big and small, and in ways that employees truly appreciate. On the more basic end, you can kick off meetings by offering shout-outs for specific accomplishments. But if you really want to shine that spotlight and make sure your team’s hard work doesn’t go unnoticed, consider creating a video like this one:

With a few fun facts and a couple of photos, you can make your employees feel included and genuinely valued.

In addition to regularly sharing videos and shout outs via slack, we at Animoto use Worktango. Worktango is an employee recognition platform that rewards individuals for giving and receiving recognition generously and publicly.

5. Offer Learning and Development Opportunities

Another win-win engagement opportunity is learning and development, or L&D. Employees who feel their development needs are supported are 21% more engaged at work than those who don’t have the same opportunities. And of course, the more that you support and build up these employees, the more they have to contribute to your team.

If it sounds expensive, don’t worry – it really doesn’t have to be! While you can always use programs like Linkedin Learning (like we do at Animoto) or provide education stipends to your teams, you can also leverage your employees’ expertise by creating custom presentations and how-tos.

For example, you can create presentation videos with screen and webcam recordings that teach employees how to use specific online tools or make informed decisions:

Or, take it across departments by having asynchronous “lunch and learn” videos where you present and share information about advances in your industry or niche. Consider taking a survey to see what your team is interested in learning more about. Then, dig into your own resources or see what’s available on like so they can continue building their skillset.

6. Create Virtual Social Interactions

It’s easy to fall into your silos or only use your communication tools to ask about work. But we know that socialization between employees contributes to an increase in trust within teams, an essential component of productivity. There are lots of ways to facilitate informal social interactions even while online. The key is to experiment, take feedback, and use your team’s favorite(s).

Here are some ideas that we use at Animoto

• Game nights: Like Drawful or Trivia.
• Town halls: Invite your team to come together to ask questions and meet new coworkers.
• Coffee dates: Randomly pair two coworkers together (or even two employees from sister companies) for a virtual coffee date over Zoom or Google Meet.
• Happy hours: Use the last hour or half hour to meet and chat. We like to bring a couple games or icebreaker questions with us to get the ball rolling.
• In-person meetings: We know that this one can get pretty complicated, but after four years of fully-remote work, we had our first in-person meetup and it was a hit! Our team has never been closer or more engaged, because, after all, there’s nothing better than a little karaoke.

7. Provide Mental Health Support

Supporting mental health is a big part of keeping remote employees engaged and happy. While remote work is still the ideal choice for many employees, it’s not without its struggles; people can feel isolated, struggle to set clear work-life boundaries, and get burned out faster. According to a survey conducted by the American Psychology Association, 81% of respondents said that mental health support is a key consideration when choosing employers.

Not only does having a mental health program make you a more attractive employer, it can make your existing employees more engaged. Providing mental health resources, like counseling or stress management workshops, sends a message that you genuinely care about your employees. And when employees know their well-being matters, they're more likely to stay engaged and committed.

Many of the tips and ideas in this article will positively impact mental health. But if you’re looking to make it an even bigger, more explicit priority, here are some budget-friendly ideas:

• Regular check-ins: Set up brief, informal check-ins with managers to create space for employees to talk about their workload and well-being.
• Mental health days: Encourage employees to take mental health days as needed to rest and recharge.
• Access to meditation and mindfulness apps: Offer free or discounted access to popular apps like Headspace or Calm, which provide guided meditations and stress-relief exercises.
• Encourage physical activity: Organize virtual fitness challenges, step-count competitions, or providing resources for at-home exercises.
• Training for managers on mental health: Provide basic training or resources to help managers recognize signs of stress and support employees who may need it.
• Weekly wellness newsletters: Send out a weekly newsletter or video with tips on managing stress and mindfulness techniques. Remind them of the resources that are available to them so they feel empowered to take advantage of them.
• Encourage anonymous feedback: Use anonymous surveys to give employees a safe way to share concerns about their workload or mental health needs.

8. Implement Remote Team Rituals

Regular check ins and weekly meetings are vital for business operations, but rituals are vital for engagement. A study from Harvard Business School found that engaging in ritualized group bonding activities resulted in a 16% increase in employees’ perception of their work’s meaningfulness.

What sets rituals apart from meetings is their purpose. Rituals go beyond a practical purpose like productivity or HR compliance and instead focus on connection. Simple rituals, like virtual coffee dates, group check-ins and conversations, and team-building activities, foster a sense of belonging for employees that might otherwise feel isolated.

The best way to form your own rituals is through experimentation and feedback. Use anonymous surveys to learn which rituals your team enjoys and what they’d like to see more of. Oftentimes, just having an open space to share and discuss the events going on in their daily lives and the world around them is enough.

9. Conduct Regular Employee Engagement Surveys

Wondering how to tell if it’s making a difference? Try using surveys! Anonymous engagement surveys get to the heart of your goals and make it easy to measure your progress. For best results, keep surveys short and straightforward, taking only a minute or two to complete. Use multiple choice and ranked questions, but include the option for open-ended answers to get more details.

Here are some questions to consider adding to your survey:

• Job Satisfaction and Fulfillment
  • How satisfied are you with your current role and responsibilities?
  • Do you feel that your work is meaningful and contributes to the company's goals?
  • How likely are you to recommend our company as a great place to work?
• Work-Life Balance and Well-Being
  • How well do you feel you can balance your work with your personal life?
  • Do you feel supported in managing work-related stress?
  • How often do you feel overwhelmed by your workload?
• Communication and Leadership
  • Do you feel that management communicates clearly and transparently with you?
  • Do you feel comfortable sharing your ideas or concerns with leadership?
  • How would you rate the quality of feedback you receive from your manager?
• Growth and Development
  • Do you feel you have opportunities for professional growth within the company?
  • How satisfied are you with the training and resources provided to help you succeed?
• Recognition and Rewards
  • Do you feel recognized and appreciated for your contributions?
  • Are you satisfied with the rewards or incentives available to you?
• Team and Culture
  • Do you feel that the company's values align with your personal values?
  • How comfortable do you feel being yourself at work?
• Remote Work
  • Do you feel supported in your remote work environment?
  • How connected do you feel to the company culture while working remotely?
  • Do you have the tools and resources you need to be productive from home?
• General Engagement and Commitment
  • How likely are you to stay with the company over the next year?
  • What could we do to improve your overall engagement and job satisfaction?

Once it’s ready, make sure your team knows about it and encourage them to respond by sharing survey reminder videos like this one:

10. Be Flexible with Feedback and Iterate

Maybe you’ve noticed, but nearly every idea we’ve shared has ended with one final tip–ask for feedback! Every company and every team is unique and evolving, so if you want to make sure they are engaged, you need to continuously gather feedback and adapt.

Don’t hesitate to gather feedback on processes, tools, and work environments, and be open to making adjustments. Even this effort signifies once again that you are there to support and provide for your teams.

Create engaging videos for your team with Animoto

No surprises here – video is a huge part of our culture at Animoto. We live by our belief that video collaboration is a remote team’s greatest resource, and we want everyone to be able to leverage it. That’s why we create a variety of engaging video templates with remote businesses in mind.

All you have to do is find the template to meet your goal and then drag, drop, and click your way to a professional and engaging video. It’s really that simple.

Get inspired and learn more about how you can bring video to your organization by exploring our full template library and sign up for a free account today.

Remote employee engagement FAQs

What are employee engagement activities?

Employee engagement activities are initiatives designed to boost employee motivation, satisfaction, and commitment to their work. These activities often include team-building exercises, recognition programs, and opportunities for skill development, aimed at fostering a positive workplace culture. The goal is to increase productivity and retention by making employees feel valued and connected.

Are employee engagement surveys effective?

Employee engagement surveys can be highly effective if they are well-designed and followed by meaningful action. They provide valuable insights into employee satisfaction, concerns, and motivation, helping organizations address key issues. However, their impact depends on how seriously feedback is taken and acted upon to improve workplace conditions.

Learn more about using video for employee engagement on our blog!