Principles of Remote Work

With COVID-19 disrupting more and more businesses, during this time of uncertainty many are wondering what the best practices are for moving their teams to 100% remote work. While the physical implications seem easy enough, companies are wondering how to maintain engagement, company culture, and keep productivity high while protecting their team members’ health and safety during the outbreak. We’ve broken it down into five major steps to help you set up your team for success and keep your business operations running as smoothly as possible during this time. 

Communication

When your team moves remote, the informal flow of information becomes more difficult. Your team members no longer have the luxury of popping their head over to their neighbour to ask for a status update and run-ins at the water cooler drop to zero. It’s important to have regularly scheduled meetings/huddles/sync-ups with clear agendas. Consider building in time for ‘water cooler talk’ to encourage informal ‘run-ins’. Your tech stack should support frequent, transparent, communication and you should be encouraging project teams to overcommunicate. If you’re relying too heavily on text-based communication, like Slack or Microsoft Teams messaging, remember that tone and body language can be missed. Encourage your team to use video (Zoom, Google Hangouts) or phone calls as frequently as possible so nothing gets misinterpreted. Use email for any communication that is more complicated, has multiple stakeholders, or for anything that you need a proper record of. 

Culture 

No one should feel like an island even though your team is geographically dispersed. Say good morning, say goodnight, build in some time for check-ins. When your team is remote, it becomes even more important to live your values, to hire, fire, and promote based on these. Look for ways to reinforce your values, share stories of team members exemplifying them, recognize, celebrate, and reward based on them. Set up remote team socials, virtual workouts, or meditations. Many companies are giving away sessions and courses for free right now. We love Mala Collective for their free 21-day meditation. If you had a team happy hour or Friday lunch, plan to keep this going and have everyone turn their video on and turn work off. It’s vital that you keep the team feeling connected - keep looking for ways to increase transparency into where the company is and where it’s going. During the crisis especially, give the team a chance to contribute ideas, buy-in, and help problem-solve together. 

Set Expectations

Consider core hours, where everyone is expected to be online and readily available and set expectations around response times. Remote workers typically enjoy greater work-life integration and appreciate some flexibility, but they also crave structure just as much as their in-office counterparts. It can be a massive transition to go from working in an office on a set schedule to having too much flexibility working from home so help them structure their day. This is a good time to revisit time management strategies, especially for junior team members, as there can be more distractions. Put together a policy or a principle around remote work so your team is crystal clear on what’s expected of them and what success does and does not look like. 

Leading

Your organization has suddenly become far more results focussed, that’s a wonderful thing. Resist the urge to micromanage but do set up systems and processes to check-in. This could be the daily huddle as mentioned, a Slack channel where the team shares their top priority for that day, or a task management tool like Asana or Trello. When you give someone trust, really give it to them, do not micromanage. During this crisis, remember to lead with a people-first mentality and show your humanity. Your team members may have kids or dogs running around in the background which can be stressful, cause distraction, and a whole lot of background noise. Remind your team that we’re all in this together and everyone’s doing the best they can, show compassion and understanding. 

IT Setup 

During the crisis, we’re seeing an increase in cybercrime. Consider setting up a VPN and remind your team to be extra diligent, to watch out for phishing emails and be wary of opening attachments from unknown senders. Your team may have other IT needs that a Managed Service Provider like Gauthier Tech or Rent-A-Nerd can offer support on. It’s important that your data is secured and safe.  

Connectedness and community is more important than ever right now. What other principles are you following to maintain your strong company culture and to ensure the productivity of your team through this crisis?