People Before Process
While this can be a time for rapid change for many companies, you cant just throw shit against the wall to see what sticks. You need to do things intelligently, and most of all, listen to your employees. Don't just tell them what your policies and processes will be! You would be very surprised how different people work (and interact) with each other when they are remote.Working from home isn't for most people. A feeling of isolation and even depression may quickly settle in. If you are in a leadership position, then you must be ever diligent to contact your remote staff members to give them human support they need to cope work remotely.
My Suggested Routines For Remote Working
When I was Head of Development at The Cogworks I establish processes to work effectively when we had people in 5 locations over 3 countries, with 2 satellite offices. Many of the processes I introduced were to tackle issues of isolation.
Here are some quick wins which I hope will help your staff adapt to working from home.
Here are some quick wins which I hope will help your staff adapt to working from home.
- Ensure everyone has a working (decent quality) webcam and microphone for video calls
- Hold a Monday morning video call to kick start the week for the entire team (or even department)
- Hold a weekday morning "standup" video call every day for the entire team (or even department)
- Hold a weekly retrospective meeting every week (eg. Friday 10am) to discuss:
- What works well for them while working from home
- What they want to improve to help them work from home
- Encourage people to video call each other
- Don't just write emails or Slack messages
- Seeing a person's face is very important. Ensure people have webcams for video!!!
- Have everyone send a group message to let others know when they:
- Start work
- Go for lunch
- Get back from lunch
- Finish work
- Consider a permanent zoom or slack video call for your team so everyone can real see faces all day
- Encourage people to ask colleagues for feedback on their work
- Very easy if you have creative workers
- Hold a show & tell session with screen sharing & video
- At Cogworks we initially called this "Code and Tell"
- Encourage staff to proactively check in each other via video calls
- Encourage people to have virtual video lunch together
Tools For Remote Productivity
In terms of tools, here is my goto list for remote productivity. Not all of these are suitable for every company, but I hope they give you an idea of the possibilities of online tools to make your job easier.Day to Day Communication
Project Scoping & Documentation
Day To Day Task Management
Final Thoughts
Remote working is definitely not for everyone. During this time of remote working en mass, you will need to be very diligent when it comes to your staff wellbeing. Hopefully this article has given you some ideas.
The routines listed in this article do actually work. I hope you really do give at least some of them a try.
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