During these challenging times of uncertainty and disruption, business leaders and entrepreneurs are facing the decision to have their workforce work remotely from home. As a leader, your team’s health and safety are a top priority and you should be observing best practices for stopping the COVID-19 transmission to the best of your ability.

While the world we are living in has been turned on its head, it’s best to remember that how we react to the situation defines our leadership. We need to focus on factors that we can control and take action where needed. This means avoiding panic and doing your part to help your workforce stay connected and safe right now.

The silver lining (if there can be) in our current situation is that we are a digital society. We have the tools and technology that afford our workers the option to work remotely from a safe environment. 

If this is a new concept or practice for your business, you will face some challenges. Working remotely tends to isolate workers, lends itself for miscommunication, and can make your employees feel disconnected. Here are some tips to help make the transition for your employees a success:

• Keep calm and avoid panic. Our lives are so heavily influenced by technology and the internet that the concept of working from home remotely over the internet is not a major change! People are used to checking their emails, Facetimes, Skype, social media, etc. to stay in contact with their family and friends. Shifting to maintaining their work relationships won’t be a huge change. Will a virtual water cooler be different? Yes, but it’s very doable.
• Assess your available tools and technology. Do an audit of what tools you have at your fingertips. Does everyone have a laptop, desktop, or mobile device that they can work from? Can they borrow hardware from the office? Do they have access and understand how to use telecommuting platforms like Zoom or Google Hangouts? Do they need software updates? Do they have proper bandwidth from home? These are all questions that need to be asked and solved first.
• Establish regular communication. Working remotely can be isolating and lonely. Make it a priority to check-in regularly via Zoom, Skype, Google Hangouts, etc. Now is the time to check in regularly to make your employees and team feel they can still contribute to collaborations virtually. If your team would normally meet every day when working in the office, then you should still be meeting everyday. Allow time for chit-chat so they still feel a sense of purpose and belonging to their team. It is important to keep communication flowing and make your team still feel connected and focus on inclusion.
• Measure and track productivity. Some people thrive while working from home – they are comfortable and focused. Others are not so lucky. They may find more distractions than they care to admit. You may find that some of your employees have quite different work ethics and levels of distraction when left on their own, some of us simply aren’t wired for self-discipline! And that’s ok, we all have different strengths. To overcome this challenge, as the leader or manager you need to set clear priorities, expectations, and project deadlines. Have a system in place that can track what and when tasks are being done and if your team is staying on target producing their deliverables will let your workforce know exactly what is expected from them and by when.

No one knows how long the COVID-19 crisis will last, or how devastating the results will be, but one thing is for sure: In dealing with it and finding practical ways to carry on, we’re learning valuable lessons about how to adapt our workforce. Switch to virtual work from home when and where you can – and use these suggestions and your own creativity to maximize this ‘new’ way of running your business.