Bonfyre Helps Connect Remote Employees and Teams

As a remote employee, I know the benefits of working remotely: a flexible schedule, better work-life balance, higher productivity–to name a few.

I’m not alone either: according to a recent survey, there are 3.7 million employees in the U.S. working from home at least half of the time.

But even with its great benefits, remote working does have its challenges, especially when it comes to communication and collaboration. I live and work in Hawaii, but the Bonfyre home office is located in St. Louis. The five-hour time difference definitely makes it harder to keep up with news from the company and my coworkers.

Savvy employers can help mitigate communication problems by providing a digital tool that makes it easy for teams to collaborate and share information. And to be effective, these tools should be flexible enough to apply to all types of employees, from frontline, deskless employees to–you guessed it–remote employees.

Bonfyre Helps Unite Remote Employees and Teams

Bonfyre helps remote workers like me connect with what’s new in the company, and provides a place to talk, share, and get to know my coworkers. This kind of contact is important for me since I don’t get the face-to-face interactions that come with working in-office.

Bonfyre provides a sense of community for remote employees and teams who may otherwise feel left out.

Best of all, Bonfyre provides a sense of community that remote employees sometimes miss out on. This is an important aspect of keeping remote employees engaged and happy, as they can start to feel shunned and left out when they don’t have connections and trust with colleagues.

Related: The Biggest Challenge of Remote Employee Engagement

One of our clients, a leading medical device manufacturer, uses Bonfyre to connect remote teams across different locations in the UK and Ireland. Overseeing teams like this can be tough since managers are working with employees who are dispersed across geographic boundaries and are reliant on technology to collaborate and complete their projects.

With all the technology remote team members have to access on a daily basis, there’s an increased need to ensure that the tools they use–especially in regard to communications–are simple and robust enough to add value, not distractions.

Bonfyre is exactly that type of tool. First of all, it’s flexible–something that’s obviously important for remote employees, especially dispersed teams collaborating with coworkers in different regions and time zones. Employees can access the platform on the web or through their mobile device at any point during the day.

It’s also a useful way to build stronger, more trusting relationships. Think of it as a digital water cooler where employees can share information, whether it’s a piece of job-related knowledge or more casual conversations centered around shared interests.

Bonfyre has a suite of features, but here are the top four that are key in supporting a remote workforce:

• Communications: Email conversations can bog down your inbox and to-do lists, and meetings can be hard to organize for dispersed employees. Bonfyre helps connect remote employees by giving them a place to share important information, check in with coworkers, and more.
• Surveys and Feedback: A key part of managing remote employees and teams means guaranteeing they feel seen and heard. Surveys, Quick Polls, and two-way chats help gather feedback and provide insight into engagement, employee experience, and more.
• Employee Recognition: Remote workers need to feel appreciated as much as in-office colleagues. Bonfyre makes it simple for both leaders and peers to give props to employees on their work using customized recognition badges.
• Internal Meetings and Events: Our event tool is a super easy way to keep remote employees in the loop about company events, webinars, training opportunities, and more.

And while these handy features all sound great written out, actually applying them to your remote employees is a whole other level. We help with that, too.

Our team provides a specialized approach

Organizations will often deploy a new tool without providing the appropriate training, or even the appropriate reasoning for why employees should be using it. What happens then? Employees fail to jump on board, and there’s no value in a tool that no one is using.

When you become a Bonfyre client, you receive access to the Client Success Team (which I happen to be a member of). What truly sets Bonfyre apart from other communication tools is the artisanal approach we take to helping clients succeed.

Let’s say we identify your specific pain point as low engagement levels among remote employees. We’ll work with you to develop an individualized strategy that addresses the issue in a way that makes sense and is meaningful for your team. This will include training and resources that’ll help get employees onboard and invested in Bonfyre’s success. To set up your strategy, we start with an interview to see exactly how your company operates. We’ll ask questions like:

• What does a typical day look like for your remote workforce?
• How many different departments and employees work remotely?
• How are you currently communicating with them? What is working and what isn’t?
• What is your company culture like? How do you extend that to remote workers?
• What goals do you want to focus on for this segment of your workforce?

After Bonfyre has been successfully deployed, you’ll be able to access a dashboard with real-time metrics on engagement, type of content being shared, when and how employees are using Bonfyre, and more. But we also go above and beyond and provide you more detailed reports with comparative data and insights to see exactly how Bonfyre is working for your company.

Throughout each stage of deploying and using Bonfyre, the Client Success Team is available to answer your questions and provide support.

I know for me personally, Bonfyre is extremely helpful in helping build camaraderie with my teammates. I can easily check in and get insight into what’s happening in their lives–both professionally and personally. When it’s time to take a call or join a meeting, I can reference these insights to chat about what’s new with them or interests we have in common.

And in the end, meaningful communication is all about the little interactions we have with our colleagues. Think about the work conversations that have most engaged you–they most likely addressed things you’re passionate about, whether that’s a project, your community, or a personal interest.

Bonfyre is here to amplify those conversations and the feelings they create. No matter what your goals are, we’re dedicated to helping you achieve them.

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