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During the COVID-19 crisis, most employees are forced to work remotely and virtually as businesses are closed while others must follow social distancing rules. Anthony Mitchell, chief potential officer at organization consultancy Bendelta, shares five tips for managing remote and virtual workers.
State the mechanics correctly
Get the mechanics right first. Choose technologies and tools that work for your organization, context, and goals. Platforms like Zoom and Teams are well-regarded, but every business has different needs and constraints.
However, the platform is just the beginning. You may want to overlay other tools (which may not be part of the platform) such as live voting and virtual whiteboards. To make it work, you’ll also need to equip your people to work and engage remotely by providing them with technology, home office essentials, work support, health and safety and remote work training.
Change your thinking
Then you will have to change your mindset and stop relying on physical proximity. You can only log in remotely occasionally, so micromanaging (already a bad practice) becomes unsustainable. You need to move to results-based management and value creation.
Employees must also change. In the past, you may have been on a video conference or conference call and barely engaged because you were more focused on your emails than the conversation. This is no longer acceptable, and with much more use of visual communication, everyone needs to be mentally present, focused and listen well.
Use strategies consistently
This kind of team engagement doesn’t happen automatically, so you’ll need to consistently employ strategies that capture and keep your team’s attention. Anchoring the challenge to real life, rather than theory, not only improves attention, but also increases long-term retention of information.
Alternate modes when presenting or holding a team meeting (for example, moving between slides, video, and discussion) to give everyone a chance to play to their strengths, increase attention and engagement levels, and reduce the number of necessary breaks (since the change of mode itself acts as a cognitive break). Finally, rotate knowledge sources, such as between the team leader, the group discussion, and the technical expert. This will give you more commitment, better decision-making and better team morale.
Manage team spirit
Managing team spirit will also be a priority. One of the ironies is that many teams become more cohesive when they work virtually, not less. This is because you’re likely to be doing your daily stand-up virtually and because you see more into someone’s life – you can see their kids, their pets and what they have on their wall. This in turn will increase interest in themselves as people. Leaders must take full advantage of this to build trust and camaraderie.
Promote the event
Finally, promote the event. The risk of going virtual is that people won’t have direction, especially if they’re not busy. Virtual is great for creating and maintaining clear, disciplined cadences, but only if you stick to them. Make sure each meeting begins with accountability for previous commitments and ends with a strong call to action. This is true for face-to-face meetings, but even more so when you may not see the person until the next event.
This article was originally published on The Australian.
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