Without almost any warning at all, businesses around the world have had to start working remotely. Owners and managers who never even considered working this way, or who thought that their work didn’t lend itself to it, have had to improvise – fast. While this transition may seem daunting, there are many established businesses whose experience can guide you.
“Flexible and remote working have been part of the Lenovo culture for years,” says Thibault Dousson, GM of Lenovo South Africa. “We’ve found that it helps to nurture happy and loyal team members, and that they’re more productive as a result.”
If you’re trying to reconfigure your business so that it’s remote working-friendly, the following tips will help:
Stay flexible and connected through portable technology
In a traditional office environment, we often move with our laptops in hand from a desk, to a meeting room, to a pause area. When working from home, the new form-factors and easily portable laptops and mobile workstations allow you to keep the same pace, so you can stay active. You don’t have to sit in your “home office” base or remain in one setting throughout the entire day.
Instead, you might move from your desk to your couch to your dining room table with your laptop over the course of the work day. And you no longer have to worry about battery life. The improved smart stand-by features in laptops give you 30% more battery usage, so you are free to roam around. Staying active will in turn make you more engaged and efficient while you use these technologies to fuel your work.
Leverage productivity and collaboration tools
Video is key to the remote working environment. It’s an engaging style that enables employees to feel connected and avoid that feeling of isolation typically reported when working from home. It’s important that companies make sure their employees are armed with the ability to use the best video-conferencing technology. The latest laptops, desktops and workstations all have enhanced video and audio features that provide microphones for 360° reception and a four-metre far-field performance.
With all these capabilities your PC now acts more like a smartphone with an optimised user experience, ensuring a more phone-like, always-on, always-connected state.
If working remotely makes you fear losing your visibility among colleagues or worry you’ll feel isolated, take advantage of Microsoft Teams, Skype, Zoom, or other video-conferencing tools. Taking even five minutes to chat with someone who you haven’t connected with in a while can shift your entire mood or workflow for the better.
Also, you can never underestimate the importance of a chatroom or a direct message. Keeping a team chatroom open all day will make you feel connected and aligned. Some employees are even utilising their company’s video-conferencing solutions to ping a colleague and grab a virtual lunch together. The right technology provides not just productivity, but personal connectivity.
Encourage flexible work schedules
As Covid-19 impacts childcare and other services, it’s vital to be sensitive to the ways your colleagues may be juggling work and home responsibilities in new and challenging ways.
Chances are you’re no longer the only one in your household dealing with the effects of coronavirus in your community, so make sure to communicate clearly to let your household know it’s work time. Starting and ending work at the same time each day will help you separate professional and personal time.
It’s also important to bear in mind that some employees would not ordinarily choose to work from home, as they feel they are less productive because of distractions like TV or an inability to separate work and family life. Setting some boundaries and daily schedules will help eliminate those distractions and increase your employees’ ability to focus.
Communicate often as this might be the new norm
As managers, it’s our job to make sure our teams feel connected and happy. Working remotely can be a difficult adjustment, and there are many uncertainties right now. Clear and open communication is vital during these transition periods.
As we move forward, company policies are evolving and will continue to do so. The many uncertainties presented by Covid-19 challenge businesses to find new ways to collaborate with their teams remotely. Will this pandemic create a future where remote work will be more of the norm than it is today? There is a sense this situation might usher in more permanent change.
The employee experience in the workplace was already changing before the pandemic hit. Technology capabilities were ushering in a new global workforce that stays connected in a work-from-anywhere world. Since 2005, the regular work-at-home population has grown 159% and is still trending up.
The situation we are in right now is only confirming that the investment employers are making in technology right now won’t be wasted, as most people feel productive at home and believe that the workforce will move more in this direction from now on.
“While we are certainly in the middle of disruptive times, this is also an opportunity for businesses to evolve and grow,” says Dousson. “Make the most of this rare and unusual chance, and adopt a long-term view. It’s unlikely that it will be business-as-usual for some time yet. More than ever before, staying afloat – and thriving – is going to come down to innovation and agility.”