Simple steps to improve remote work productivity

As this coronavirus has brought the world to a standstill, pretty much every company is moving towards working from home. There are many companies, especially the ones in the IT industry are familiar with this concept, but there are a lot more that are not used to telecommuting. At least, not at this scale. I thought of doing my part by providing some tips on making remote work effective.

Before going to my tips, let’s review what we lose by working remotely. Is it face to face interactions? Yes, and no. Sure, face to face interactions will not happen, but what about it is essential? That generally means three things 1) You will no longer have the ability to walk over to someone's desk or call for a meeting at any time of the day. That means opportunities to interact with others will diminish 2) You won’t be able to see the body language, that makes it more challenging to communicate, leading to communication gaps 3) That ‘personal feel and touch’ won’t happen, which is the feel of someone’s presence. You tend to communicate more face to face with someone next to you compared to the same person being at the other end of a phone or chat. That’s a normal human tendency.

So, it comes down to the fact that interactions become more difficult. What that means is the leadership has a task to create a framework to ensure all employees are communicating despite the physical distance. Not just giving them the tools and ability to communicate, creating a structure that facilitates & mandates communication. At the end of the day, it's all about communication. Nothing here is rocket science, but I wanted to compile these for the benefit of those who are not used to this model.

1)     Keep the same schedule as regular office work: Everyone is used to a schedule. Keep it. Make your employees feel that they are working in a virtual office. That mindset is essential. If they were working in the office from 9 to 6, they would work from home from 9 to 6. If there was an hour lunch break, give the same lunch break.

2)     Start the day with a status call: The main challenge is effective communication in remote work. Over-communication is never a bad idea. Start the day with a call with plans for the day. This call can begin as an all-hands call with some generic announcements followed by breakout detailed planning calls for individual teams. The goal is to make sure every employee understands the tasks for the day.

3)     Have periodic calls. Make sure the progress is monitored throughout the day via status calls. Calls can occur as frequently as every hour, depending upon the type of work. The frequency will be higher within individual teams and probably less as you go up the chain. For example, individual teams can meet every hour. All team leads meet twice a day.

4)     Create a chat option. Have the opportunity for employees to chat with each other as needed throughout the day. It's a good idea to have all employees join a standard chat program and have them be online throughout work hours. This becomes the digital equivalent of stopping by someone’s desk. Use a corporate chat tool or resort to free chat tools. And of course, encourage phone calls. Everyone should talk to each other as much as possible

5)     Try to have as many video calls as possible. People want to see each other’s faces. Video calls are more effective than audio calls any day. There are a lot of video conferencing services available.

6)     Keep sending the status report. Either make the status report available in a shared location or email it periodically. This is not to put any pressure on any employee, instead, to send a gentle wakeup call from work. It's very easy to get detached from work being in a remote location, especially with all the distractions

7)     End the day with a status call. Review accomplishments of the day. Talk about plans for the next day. And don’t forget to end the day with words of appreciation. That will keep everyone motivated to continue to give their best. 

As you can see, all the points above are focused on communication. To a point, it may become an overhead, but it is an essential overhead for remote work. Over-communication is never a bad idea in this scenario. 

God bless and stay safe out there. Feel free to ping me if you have any questions.