Advise for employers when it comes to their remote workers
As we all know, Covid pandemic pushed many organisations to implement fast solution without having an actual feedback or preparation.
Many office workers were forced to start new normal work activities from their homes.
There were many significant problems in performance when everyone started to work remotely, often we observed employees as well as employers having difficulties to hide their frustration of a new normal.
The most common issues observed when dramatic switch from office to home happened:
- projects took longer to complete
- Hiring process and integrating new workers became very complicated
- New employees were less connected and appeared to develop slower
- Training was often non existent
- There was a burnout within employees observed
…and I’m sure there is many more to list !
So what can be done to improve existing setup?
To run a business smoothly you need a plan and often you need to apply a solution which may seems expensive to begin with but in a long run it will save you quite a lot. Once you train your employee to work remotely effectively, it is likely that you will keep him or her for a long time.
First and foremost COMMUNICATION, this situation is new for your business, it is new for yourself as well as for your employee, everyone reacts differently to new surroundings and you are required to be patient as well as to have excellent communication with your employees. I suggest to ask your team to prepare questions they may have and email them to you, this way you can take your time answering each point and if needed doing a little research to backup your solution. Remember that it is all about the worker, you don’t want to leave the impression that you allow someone to work from home and you know that instead of working they will be playing games and not doing any tasks or keep them to bare minimum. It is a key to establish on what will be expected and some credit of trust must be issued.
Make sure you don’t expect more than you did from your workers in the standard office setup as this will back fire at you. You also don’t want to create a burnout. Allow people to have breaks, also as this is now their personal space they use for work you may want to ask them on how they are going to tackle certain things, it is best and proven that if agenda is created by sensible worker, it may come as a success. Make sure you communicate often enough so you don’t feel isolated from employees which will lead to making unhealthy comments.
Try to keep all communication in writing, this way it is easier to point out expectations. Make sure there is goal or target system and it is achievable, that way everyone from your team will be able to tackle the tasks the way they should be handled! Make sure there is a feedback in place, once the task is completed, you want to make sure there is a reward, even if it is verbal or in writing (and not financial), people like to feel that they succeed and you want to send this message across so they feel fulfilled at doing their work.
To summarise if you don’t have a clear plan on how your workflow should work, you can either use trial and error practise which may result in losing some of your key employees and hurt a business in the long run, or you may want to hire someone who can look after the whole transition period for you and your team. I have started offering consultancy services like that and I was able to get a very good feedback from doing so.
I understand that about 40% of people who come around and spend some time reading my BLOG are actually employers so I thought it would be a good idea to show you the perspective which is often muted by your own employees.
How are you tackling the work from home transition? Feel free to let me know in the comments section below.
All the best,
Lucas
