The COVID-19 response has led to a widespread shift to remote work in the professional world. For some companies, it’s just an extension of an already accepted practice – after all, remote work is constantly growing in popularity. In the U.S. alone, 4.7 million people (or 3.4% of the population) work remotely on some level. But not every company is as well-equipped to deal with the transition as others, as the virus has shifted everyone’s remote work status into overdrive.
The key to implementing remote work successfully? Staying connected with employees through clear, consistent communications.
Let’s take a closer look at the best practices you can use to stay connected – platforms and procedures you can adopt to ensure everyone is on the same page, productive, and content in their roles.
Establish expectations early
Once your team has moved to remote work, it’s important to be crystal clear on the expectations your company has for them as far as availability and communication. Be upfront that while you understand life can get in the way, working from home is still work. It may seem like an unpleasant conversation at first, but what you’re really doing is setting a baseline for them.
If your company already has a remote work policy in place, you should have a standard teleworking agreement for the employees to sign. It can include policies on remote work, core hours of operation, and the minimum requirements employees will need (i.e. phone, internet connection, laptop, etc.). Make sure your team members have a signed one on file and incorporate any expectations into this document if you need to create a new one. Make sure this is then posted to your employee-only intranet site so they can review it when needed.
Set up a consistent meeting schedule
Once remote work begins, set up a consistent meeting schedule so that your team knows when and how they have to check-in. This can be a weekly teleconference. It can be a daily email. It can be a bi-monthly video chat. The important thing is to determine the operating tempo and format that works best for your individual teams.
You may send your team members a daily email with updates on the response to the developing situation. Perhaps you’ll have a weekly conference call with round-robin updates to get a holistic view of a specific team’s progress and challenges. Whatever format you decide to use, make sure of two things before you do:
- That it’s the format your employees can use easily and prefer.
- That you set a consistent schedule and stick to it, barring any unforeseen circumstances.
Having a regular check-in of some kind helps your team return to normalcy. It will also help them know when they can expect updates so they know exactly what’s going on.
Don’t over-communicate
It’s also important to convey to your employees that while you have expectations for their productivity, you also trust them to be adults and get their work done. To ensure you don’t end up micromanaging them, don’t set up too many meetings. This can prove burdensome on their schedules and actually prevent them from getting being productive – if they’re spending half their day on conference calls giving updates, they’ll have less time to do the necessary work to accomplish their goals.
It’s crucial to strike a balance between not communicating enough and communicating too much. Remote work does involve trust on behalf of company leadership, but it’s a two-way street. They have to trust you as well to know when to take a “hands-off” approach without being intrusive.
Make yourself available to employees outside of the regular communication schedule
While you don’t want to overburden your team, you also want to go out of your way to make sure company representatives are available to them. This will help calm anyone’s uncertainty or nerves about the company’s overall status. They may have questions about potential closures or operating status. Having high-level people in the company ready to quell their fears – even if it’s outside the agreed-upon communication schedule – can go a long way to help make your team more confident as they continue to work remotely.
Take a multi-platform approach to communication
You’ll want to meet your employees where they are. That means adopting tools and systems meant specifically for remote communication. This can include video teleconferencing solutions like Zoom or Skype. A Slack channel is also a good option for the team to provide instant updates to each other. You can adopt comprehensive collaboration tools like Microsoft Teams that allow for video chatting, emailing, and personal messaging. You may also have private cloud services where employees can post files that either need review or they have finalized.
There’s any number of reasons an employee working remotely will need to contact someone within their company. They may need guidance on a company project. They may need a status update on another initiative related to their job. They may also need a supervisor to help them handle an issue with a client. Whatever the issue, it’s important that they feel confident in knowing the company has their back despite the lack of face-to-face interaction.
The most important thing for your employees when working remotely is that they can feel heard and know they can reach out when they need you. By having multiple platforms on which they can communicate with you, you’re increasing the likelihood that they’ll be able to get ahold of the company in a pinch.
Make sure all your company websites are up to date
During the response to a crisis, your company’s web presence is critical. It communicates your company’s overall status, what steps you’re taking to battle the crisis, and when you can expect to return to normal. For this reason, it’s important to keep your company’s public-facing website up to date with communication throughout the response.
The same can be said for any company-wide employee intranet portals you have. Make sure they’re all running effectively without disruptions in service. Employees may need to access files remotely and should be able to do so without issue. You can also use these portals as opportunities to ease employee fears and be transparent about your operating status. Post links to state and local websites as well as trusted media sources to give them a clear picture of what’s going on in your community.
Make sure your web hosting is up to date so that your servers don’t crash when you need them most. It helps to have a Remote IT Helpdesk that can offer 24×7 monitoring in case a problem occurs.
Staying up to date with your company’s various websites will serve as one of your most important communication platforms when your employees shift to remote work. It gives them a single source to refer to when they have questions.
Hold a virtual happy hour
Don’t forget that while there may be unease over the circumstances in which you’ve shifted to remote work, you can still sneak opportunities for a little levity into your teams’ workdays. In fact, some might say it’s a necessity to do so.
Pick one day after work to schedule a “virtual happy hour” with your teams over chat. You may have to divide this up by department so it’s not overwhelming, but it’s a great opportunity for employees to connect and talk about something other than work or the crisis. You can encourage them to share funny but work-appropriate memes or GIFs in the chat section as well. This helps build team camaraderie in a low-stress environment.
Embrace the chaos
When you have employees who typically don’t work remotely begin to work and participate in conference calls, there’s no way around it: life is going to get in the way. You’re going to hear crying babies and barking dogs in the background of conference calls. It’s an unprecedented response to an unprecedented event, and everyone is handling it differently. Many of your employees likely are stuck at home with children in need of attention.
While you’ll want to keep your team members focused and productive, they’re also human. Allow for some leeway when they need time during the day. That may mean being away from their desk for a few minutes to tend to their children. As long as the work eventually gets done, show them some compassion as they go about their daily routine. Don’t be too strict or overbearing.
Know how to manage your IT solutions to facilitate better remote communication
The bottom line is that you can seamlessly transition to remote work by giving your employees the tools they need to communicate and stay updated. If you need assistance managing and integrating those IT tools into your daily work, Applied Innovations can help. We can assist you with managed IT services, cloud services, and cybersecurity to ensure none of your communication with your employees is disrupted. For more information on how we can serve as your partners in enabling remote work, contact us today!