21 Mar Managing Remote Employees
As fears over the spread of the coronavirus (COVID-19) continue to mount, concerns about having employees work remotely are also growing. Social distancing is a key step to slowing the spread of the diseases. The US CDC is asking employers to actively encourage their sick employees to stay home. For employers whose employee population must come to work, you’ll need to perform routine and thorough environmental cleaning, like frequently having employees wipe down all surfaces such as desks and doorknobs with disinfecting wipes. Encourage proper handwashing techniques and using hand sanitizer gels or foams. Follow this link, for guides and other printable material. https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/communication/factsheets.html
Obviously, not all roles lend themselves to remote work, but for those companies that are (even temporarily) moving to remote work, know that you can still manage employees to better productivity and engagement when they are at home as you can when they are in the office.
Let’s start with the basics such as making sure you’ve clearly and regularly communicated the rules for what remote work looks like, including what communication channels will be used (from email to online meetings), work deadlines and other expectations, how work should be done, and how it’s turned in (e.g., emailing a word docs or using a platform such as SharePoint or google docs). Also, make sure you’re rewarding company cultural standards by reinforcing and rewarding actions related to your mission, vision, values, and critically the importance of their work to the success of the organization.
When doing work remotely, employers need to ensure the employees have the right technology from laptops and chargers to enough internet bandwidth. This is especially true if your employees are staying home with children and teens who are also at home learning online or via e-learning platforms as their schools have closed as well.
In order to enable employees to bring their best selves to work or to perform at their peak potential when they are working remotely, they need support from their managers. The Management Strategy Guide provides management strategies to help individuals thrive based on their unique behavioral preferences for workplace interactions, how they take action, respond to risk and make decisions.
The guide creates awareness for managers on how well they are meeting their employee’s needs. It also gives managers the control to improve themselves through action planning. Please let me know if you have any questions about using this tool. You can also listen to this recording of the First Friday complimentary learning program on “How can I better use Management Strategy Guides?” https://zoom.us/rec/share/5Z1XPpTu9F5JWKvK9k_9dfITBoTXT6a80XVIqPYOxB3lyx9RfLf00NVFjgtJnQvG?startTime=1583517690000