The 2020 CoronaVirus outbreak has impacted our lives profoundly. The pandemic and ensuing fallout have forced companies across the globe to temporarily close their doors to accomplish social distancing and prevent the spread of COVID-19. Workers who have never worked from home are now full-time remote employees. Big corporate offices lay empty as these newly isolated employees grapple for ways to accomplish their work when human contact is not an option. These, normally onsite, team members, are missing their established network, their office give and take and the face to face interaction that has contributed to their success for all these years. Now, in unprecedented times, they have been forced to look for creative ways to stay connected when the daily office life is not available to tap into. They are quickly learning something we’ve known all along – community is the secret to a happy, successful workplace even when you’re not seeing the team in-person day in, day out.
Tips To Stay Connected During Quarantine And Beyond
Find the right tech.
Countless technology tools are available to support connectivity in the spread-out workforce. Zoom is the virtual meeting tool of the hour, but there are many other virtual meeting tools to consider. Of course, there are other technology offerings that can help you accomplish your needs to connect, such as Skype, Slack, as well as project management applications like Asana, Teamwork and Jira to help you with work processes.
Meetings don’t have to be all about work.
Keep in mind that social distancing takes away the quick Monday morning drop in to exchange weekend stories, the water cooler gossip and the Netflix obsession-comparison chats. Stay connected in a non-working way with meetings just to catch up, spitball new ideas and commiserate about the state of things during the quarantine. These friendly catch ups can keep you focused and dissolve feelings of isolation.
Communicate about how things are going to go.
For obvious reasons, there is a general sense of uneasiness for everyone worldwide. Your team may be wondering what the future looks like for the company. Customers may have a whole new set of frequently asked questions that need to be answered, and processes may be completely out of whack due to this unexpected upheaval. A newly reinvigorated and consistent stream of communication needs to flow from management to the team to keep them up to date in this unique situation where things are changing rapidly and impromptu meetings are not as impromptu due to social distancing.
Accommodate and account for the unique distractions.
During the work-from-home scenarios brought on by COVID-19, it’s important for business leaders to understand and accommodate for the unique at-home office makeup workers are facing. In a “normal” work from home or remote work setup, your workers would have a private office, childcare and spouses would have their own separate working space. In today’s current Corona Virus situation, kids and spouses are home and space can be limited. Add to the mix that virtual school may be in session, layering on another task for the work from home employee who is also a parent, and workflow can be impacted. Since we are all in the same boat, it’s a good plan of action to gain insight and understanding of how this can affect productivity.
Coronavirus has thrown all but the essential workers the world over into a work from home role. The transition was unexpected and mandatory, but with a few key steps, it can be positive and smooth with a few extra steps. The secret to mastering this spread out, virtual environment is an answer that freelancers, solopreneurs and remote workers have always known. It’s all about creating a community.
The community is the thread that permeates throughout the physical workspace, but it can be created in virtual work relationships as well. And, the great news is the technology inroads have already been created to support your success. Follow some simple tips to create a virtual community for your team – even if it’s only temporary. This is the time to come together and build bonds as we all navigate this unbelievable situation together.
Crown Center Executive Suites has taken proactive steps to ensure that we are in compliance and protective of our business tenants. Stepping up cleaning services and social distancing protocols are in place to help our community use our state of art workspaces to keep up their business operations during this time. We will continue to keep you updated as we navigate this landscape together. Our flexible workspace options include:
