As a business owner, you’ve probably found that things have changed pretty drastically over the past couple of months. The rapid and unprecedented spread of coronavirus has resulted in a worldwide pandemic that has sent countries across the world into lockdown states.
Day by day, more governments are enforcing lockdown regulations that encourage everyone other than essential key workers to stay at home. Now, thanks to the rise of technology, many of us have found that we can continue our business’ operations – we just need to let our staff work remotely from their homes until this situation passes.
But at the same time, this is a largely different style of working to what your staff are used to. Sure, there may be a small window where they need to settle into their new working day, but there are a number of steps that you can take to ensure that staff are still being productive when working from their own homes. Here are a few suggestions that can help you along the way.
Make Sure Your Staff Have the Right Software and Tools
First things first, you need to make sure that your staff are able to work from home. If they usually work from a laptop, things are pretty easy. They can just take the laptop and charger from the office to work on at home. If they usually have a desktop computer, things might not be quite so easy. You may need to invest in a laptop for them to work from in the meantime. You should also ensure that your staff have all of the software that they need to communicate effectively with one another. Sure, email may work. But you should attempt to replicate the instant face-to-face chat that they might have while working in the office with instant messaging software, such as Microsoft Teams. This will help them to collaborate and complete projects faster. There are also agencies who can help with things like this, such as an agency that specialises in marketing technology to aid your marketing team.
Set Targets and KPIs
Chances are your staff usually have targets or key performance indicators (or “KPIs”) anyway. But if not, now is a good time to implement them. This will give each individual member of staff something to strive towards and can encourage everyone to work that little bit harder than they might if they weren’t pushed towards a clear goal.
Check In With Meetings
Sure, you can’t all gather in a meeting room. But there are a number of apps out there that allow for group video calls. Check in on your staff with team meetings. This will ensure that everyone’s bright, alert and up to date with what they need to be doing. It also creates an opportunity for staff to raise any concerns that they may have and make any requests for things that could help them to create the best work they can.
Sure, we’re working through pretty unusual times. But hopefully, things will be back to usual sooner rather than later. Hopefully, the above information will help to keep you going in the meantime!
- Please note that this post has been written by an outside source – See Disclosure policy.
