With the WHO (World Health Organization) declaring COVID-19 as a pandemic, people across the globe are taking preventive measures to be safe. Many countries have announced Lockdown and all the organizations are insisting their employees opt for remote working or Work From Home to ensure their safety.
The remote working culture will bring a drastic change in the way organizations function. Hence, here are some tips that will help you manage your remote employees effectively and maintain productivity among them.
Access to Tools And Technology
Make sure that your employees have access to all the tools and techniques required to complete the assigned tasks. Whether it’s the basic need like the internet, laptop, etc or access to some project management or storage tools, make sure they are provided with these amenities. Every employee should be able to easily login and start working with the tools seamlessly.
Align on What Communication Channels to Use
Communication is one of the most crucial aspects of remote work. Since you are not able to meet your employees in-person, virtual communication is the only means which can be used for reaching them out. So first, be clear about the communication channel to be used like, Slack, Skype, Teams, Viber, etc, in order to ensure that all your employees are using one single communication platform.
Create Concrete Communication and Operational Guidelines
After deciding the communication channel, it is important to set the guidelines for these functions which your employees need to follow while working remotely. This may include setting up TAT (Turn Around Time) which will help you clearly specify the time taken to respond, complete a task, break, etc.
Don’t Keep Prying to See If Your Employees Are Online
Make sure that you are not micro-managing your employees by checking on them frequently. Instead, you can ask them to drop an email or text once they log in with the tasks to be completed for the day. This will not just ensure to ease your burden but also help the employees to plan their day before they start working on it.
Let Technology Address Your Concerns
Most of the organizations today are finding hard to manage the remote working environment. The smooth functioning of daily business operations with a remote workforce is a tough job. Hence, opt for hr software that will help you and your employees easily clock-in, manage attendance, payroll and so on.
Communicate Your Work Arrangement to Your Clients
Make sure to set the right expectations with your clients and keep them posted much before in case of any delays. Convey them clearly about the assignments and deadlines so that there is no miscommunication between you and your clients.
End-of-day / End-of-week Check-in
Working remotely should adversely affect your employee productivity or business operations. Therefore, it’s important that you keep a track of the work and ensure you meet the deadlines. Insist your employees to send a daily or weekly email update about their tasks.
Create a Remote Culture
Let them know that remote working can be fun too! Stay connected with your team as much as you can, celebrate personal & professional achievements just like the way you do in the office, hop on to video chat with your team. All these will help in making your employees feel comfortable and touch with each other. In addition, create an accountability culture where team members collaborate, are transparent and invest in each other’s success.
Trust and Empathy
Trust that people will get their work done and understand if they need help. This is probably going to be the hardest part for many companies but engendering trust can go a long way to making this work for your company. Make sure employees can easily reach out to you with any concerns or roadblocks they are facing.
Let’s stand together and fight this pandemic. Stay home, stay safe!