Whether you are faced with something unusual like the COVID-19 pandemic or your company normally has employees who work from home, this list can be very helpful for you. Here are six ways to make working from home easier for your office. Whether you use one or more of these tips below, you can see the results you seek.
1. Accurately Assess Your Situation
You will not have a productive work-from-home situation without an accurate assessment of your needs. This means you will need to get feedback from your employees. And be sure that you are open to that feedback.
All of your leads and managers will need to involved with this, too. Remind them to regularly engage employees to get their take on how things are going. Your staff will have valuable insight on how to make sure you have the best working from home situation possible for your business.
2. Improve Your Information Technology (IT)
Have you thought about looking into your company’s IT? You need to ensure your business has the right tech bandwidth. And you also need to be sure you have the right tech products.
Even if you have an IT department, you might want to look into hiring IT consultants to improve your company’s IT. You can use the expert services for one-off services, and you can use those services through an ongoing service arrangement, too. With your team working from home, you need the best IT capacity possible. Work on making needed improvements as soon as possible.
3. Look into Virtual Technologies
Speaking of technology, you might want to look into virtual technology. Consider, for example, virtual data rooms. No matter your industry, you should find this technology to be very helpful for your business.
You can manage documents. You can even handle contract negotiations. And on top of the great virtual technology, you and your team have access to quality customer service. You should also incorporate different online services into your virtual office, and a good example would be utilizing online fax to your virtual room.
4. Focus on Communication
You need to be sure to focus on communication when you have people working from home. Make sure you stress the importance of communication protocols. If at-home employees start doing things their own way, your company definitely can run into some issues.
Make sure all of your supervisors stress how important this is to your entire team. They will need to take a very active role in making sure your team follows established communication guidelines. Be sure you have regular training on your communications procedures, too.
5. Make Sure to Focus on Coaching
You need to make sure you have a culture of coaching. You need to be certain to pay attention to the aforementioned communications procedures, but there are other parts of your day to day operations where coaching should also be stressed. Do not forget to make sure everyone knows how to access certain technologies. You need to be sure they are using those technologies the right way, too. And be certain your staff is coached about new product developments.
You can do this through one on one coaching. Team coaching and all-staff coaching can be very helpful for you all, too. You need to make sure you have a culture of coaching. So schedule in time for it, but you also need to make sure it happens any time there is a moment for it.
6. Stress Employee Wellness
Do you stress employee wellness to your team? If you are not doing this yet, then you really need to look into it. When you have employees working from home, it could be tougher to stay on top of their wellness. You do not have that regular face to face interaction.
Ask your leads and managers to take an active role in doing this with you. You all can send out communications that highlight wellness. You can include links to helpful blogs and online videos. And make sure you and any supervisors are proactive with this. Be sure to encourage your entire team to be open about any wellness issues they might have, too. Everyone, including you, should feel comfortable going to a colleague about any concerns.
Consider bookmarking this page. You might want to reference it again in the future. You also share this list with members of your staff.