In the last few weeks, COVID-19 has upended the corporate world. Companies are asking employees to work remotely whether they are prepared for it or not. Even if we had remote workers before, we now have many more remote workers than we expected. This event was a wake-up call for many of us. I asked myself, “Am I being intentional enough about my approach to a mobilized work force?” Even industries that never thought they would allow work from home are attempting remote work. A mobilized modern worker means that our employees need to be able to get work done when they need to, how they need to and where they will be most productive. This raises many questions.
What does a remote worker need? How do we handle this transition? What’s required technically to enable remote worker? What do I need in the office to connect with workers remotely? What impact will this have on productivity and on my culture?
- The first things we know we need for a remote worker are basic tools like a laptop and a desktop video conferencing service. In many cases our thoughts stop there. The reality is it takes a lot more to be truly productive working remotely and disconnected. Here are few steps to help your workers be productive when working remotely.
- Start with the right space at home. Working remotely does not mean working from the kitchen table or island. You want to take the time to setup a space where you can have some privacy and focus on the task at hand. You’ve escaped from the interruptions of the office, but there are many distractions at home to be avoided.
- Get the right technology tools setup in your space. Your 13-inch laptop or tablet with a built-in camera and mic will not create the right experience when trying to have a quality conversation with your clients or teammates. You need to be heard and seen well. You also need to see the far end video and content. At a minimum you will likely want 1-2 external computer monitors, a separate mouse and keyboard, a Bluetooth headset and an external web camera so you can set it up for the right height. Let’s face it, a camera looking up from below our nose is usually not our most appealing side.
- In your space if you want to have the best experience for your video calls you will want to consider lighting, background noise and what the far end of a call will be seeing behind you. Try to keep to a neutral background and lighting that will face you to light your face. Lighting or a window from behind you will create unwanted shadows.
- What about at the office? You are still likely to have some folks working from the office. Even a small group of people conducting a video meeting together need a better solution than a single laptop camera and microphone to conduct an engaging video call. You want the remote participants to feel like they are in the room with you. In small room, this requires at least a 40” monitor, web camera, and speaker phone with a quality microphone. There are also all-in-one solutions with a speaker bar, camera and microphone. All this equipment is much more affordable and easier to install than it was just 2 years ago.
- How will this impact my culture? The good news is that you can still have a connected and engaged workforce that works remotely. The key is that you must be intentional about it. Buffer.com is one example of a company who has created engaged culture with remote workers from all over the world. They publish their cultural norms and regularly blog about what they’ve learned about being disparate – https://open.buffer.com/. A couple of things you want to be intentional about are your meeting rhythms and your meeting norms. It’s easy to forget about basics when we are all in person, but the reality is fundamentals always should be used whether we are in-person or remote. A fundamental for all meetings is to have an agenda, take meeting minutes and send out action items with owners and due dates. How often do you attend meetings where this does not occur? To help maintain your culture consider your meeting rhythms. How often will you meet online as a team? Do you have 15-minute daily huddles? Conducting regular video enabled 1-1s with your staff so you can see facial expressions and non-verbal cues can keep you connected. Remember that non-verbal communication is 50% or more of your communication in a meeting. Insist that everyone is on video….and their camera is turned on…whenever possible. You can integrate audio only callers, but they will be missing out on a large value of the conversation.
Sometimes it takes a major event for us to realize many of the things we must do are things we should have been doing all along. Washing our hands, not touching our faces and covering our coughs are all basic hygiene steps we should always practice.
Enabling mobilization of our workforce, building a work environment that connects our office workers to our remote workers and developing a culture that provides connectedness even when your staff does not sit next to each other are all good business practices.
We get comfortable with our norms and sometimes it takes a major event to get us to change.
LINX is developing a blog series to help you through this transition. You can receive these blogs directly to your inbox by signing up here. If you would like assistance in your evolution please contact us.
Travis Deatherage
President, LINX MULTIMEDIA