by admin | May 19, 2020 | Human Resources, Work From Home, Workplace
The traditional workplace of physical offices and desks has changed. The new normal we are all experiencing is the remote workplace. While some are adjusting to this change without any growing pains, some may find it difficult to transition. Follow these tips to help manage your time in this new space.
SET UP A PHYSICAL WORKSPACE
You don’t need to have a home office with a door and desk to have a workspace in your home. Grab a space at your kitchen table or a card table in a corner or even a lap desk on your couch. Make this dedicated workspace the place you do all your work. Doing so creates a familiar location where your brain knows you do your work.
SET A ROUTINE
Just as you had a routine for the normal work week, you need to set up a routine for your home-based work week. This can get tricky because the things that you would normally do to get ready for work like take a shower, get dressed in work attire, eat breakfast, and drive to work may not happen anymore. The folks at Entrepreneur said it best when they said, “Now when you wake up, you’re already at work.” You have to work at setting up a routine so you can accomplish your work goals from home. Set an alarm and wake up at a scheduled time. Set a time that you begin and end work. Take a lunch break. Make sure you schedule in some breaks throughout the day as well.
SET GOALS
Look at your work and set goals to have it finished. This may look like a list of prioritized tasks so you stay on schedule. Goals can be daily or weekly or task oriented. By setting these goals you set a schedule for yourself and you can follow this outline towards their completion. Goals also help you eliminate distractions like the TV being on, looking at your phone, or surfing social media by requiring you stay focused on work to achieve them.
SET UP CONNECTION TIME
A remote workplace does not mean an isolated life. Work to stay connected with your co-workers in creative ways. Have a parking lot happy hour in your cars or in camp chairs to reconnect with your office mates at socially distant lengths. Office Zoom calls allow you to see familiar faces all at once. When you stay emotionally connected with your co-workers, you create a culture of support in your office and that’s something we all need!
During this uncertain time in all of our lives, there are tools to help us. Keeping up with work tasks and staying connected to others helps provide the stability that we all crave in this moment. Make sure you keep these tools handy!
by admin | May 14, 2020 | COVID-19, Work From Home
For many of us, the experience of working entirely from home is a new one. It has required us to rethink the way we work and function as a team. Many of the routines, patterns, practices, and processes we have created over time are no longer effective, and we’ve had to institute new means of collaborating, getting our work done, and elevating the people around us.
With all these changes, there’s bound to be confusion and concern among employees about what’s expected of them. Fortunately, leaders can do a lot to soothe these fears and provide clarity. Below are a few practices I recommend.
Deliberately model what you expect to see
For many employees, working from home during the COVID-19 pandemic has meant navigating a new work environment with new demands, distractions, and interruptions – each of which brings additional stress and frustration. In these circumstances, employees need guidance on where the company can be flexible (e.g., work hours or pace) and where they need to toe the line (e.g., company values).
It’s important to communicate your expectations, whether verbally or in writing, but the most effective strategy is simply to show employees what you expect. Images are powerful, and right now they have the power to clarify and reassure. It’s one thing, for example, for an employee to hear from their manager that it’s okay for them to take a moment here and there to tend to a child’s needs; it’s quite another for an employee to witness their manager tending to their own child’s needs. The former instructs; the latter makes the lesson real. In my own practice, I put 2-3 breaks with my family each day on my public calendar, so employees understand that taking a few minutes out of the day to care for your family is not only accepted but encouraged. Showing rather than simply telling also emphasizes the shared experience: We’re all in this together.
Share your own challenges and creative solutions
Employees won’t see most work-from-home challenges that their leaders face on a day-to-day basis, but knowing their leaders are in the same boat can be both comforting and confidence-building. Share with your team the challenges or emotions you’re working through, and any personal learnings you’ve had about ways to manage this crisis. Your employees don’t necessarily have to do things the same way you do — you’ll get better engagement, focus, and commitment by trusting them to find their own strategies. The more important thing is to communicate that they can be open with their challenges, and that those challenges are legitimate and there’s hope for the future.
Reach out socially and encourage employees to do the same
I’ve encouraged the teams here at ThinkHR and Mammoth to schedule regular, optional social time together. Midmorning coffee hours and late afternoon happy hours have been popular. We also recently celebrated our families with a virtual “Bring Your Kids to Work Day” bingo game. I hosted, and we were thrilled to see 50 kids join the call.
Employees may be hesitant to start or participate in virtual social events, especially during work hours, if they don’t feel the activities have their leader’s support. You can set an example here not only by giving the green light to occasional fun occasions, but also by participating in them. I try to join one virtual team happy hour each week, and I’m confident I get as much or more out of it as our employees.
I also recommend regularly asking your team members on an individual, unplanned basis how they’re doing and what they may need. Encourage them to do the same with their colleagues. We don’t have the benefit of spontaneous office encounters to strike up conversations and check-in with each other. We all have to be more deliberate about personal interactions. As elsewhere, you can set an example here.
by Nathan Christensen, Chief Executive Officer, ThinkHR
Originally posted on ThinkHR.com
by admin | Apr 15, 2020 | COVID-19, Work From Home
As companies frantically try to adapt to the coronavirus pandemic, many HR teams find themselves with an alarmingly jam-packed workload. Employee interviews need to be postponed, telework policies implemented or adjusted, health and wellness protocols changed. And when everyone is in crisis mode, it’s easy to let a simple, but crucial, aspect of the job fall to the wayside: being there for your employees.
While setting up work-from-home, sorting out paychecks and PTO, and all the other ins and outs of your company’s crisis plan does help your workers, what many people need right now is empathy, compassion and someone to talk to. This is a stressful and downright scary time for many, and as human resources professionals it’s our job to be there for our coworkers when they need that support.
Here are a few things you can do (remotely) to help emotionally support your employees as we withstand the global coronavirus pandemic.
1. Set Up Regular Video Check Ins
With a large portion of the American workforce practicing social distancing, quarantining, and working from home, it’s easy for employees to feel isolated and disconnected. While many workers will get a chance to get some face time with their team members over video conferences and meetings, it’s important they also get time to simply chat, catch up, and be there for each other—just as they would in the office. Consider setting up daily or biweekly video conferences, either one-on-ones or small groups, that allow workers to hang out and converse about non-work-related topics.
2. Be Considerate Of Each Individual Work Environment
While it’s certainly possible to be just as productive working from home as you would be in the office, it’s important to keep in mind that everyone’s new work environment is going to be different, and potentially present new challenges. Workers may be sharing cramped office spaces with a spouse or roommate, and employees with children who are home from school may have to juggle parental duties in between their typical responsibilities. It’s important to be understanding and compassionate as both employees and employers adjust to these new circumstances, and not to hold the growing pains of mass teleworking against them.
3. Lead With Care
Above all, openly let your employees know that you are a resource for them in these turbulent times. By leading with compassion, care, and empathy above all else, you can help keep office morale high and enable employees to feel safe and secure, despite the global pandemic.
By Bill Olson
Originally posted on ubabenefits.com
by admin | Mar 19, 2020 | Human Resources, Work From Home
It’s been said the ongoing COVID-19 (coronavirus) outbreak has created the largest remote work experiment ever devised. In fact, there are many recently documented cases where companies have asked at least some of their employees to work from home. Three of those companies are Amazon, Twitter and Microsoft.
Remote work, of course, is not something new. In the past, remote work has been largely reserved for customer service representatives but that’s changed now with remote work being a reality for many different industries across the board. There’s been a 173 percent increase in people working remotely since 2005. Additionally, 75 percent of workers say they’re more productive at home. The reasons:
- Fewer distractions
- Less commuting
- Lower instances of office politics
The coronavirus aside, there are some real challenges for HR when it comes to looking after a remote workforce. Chief among them is the strategy for keeping those remote employees engaged the company.
Remote Work
Employee Engagement
Employee engagement is not an easy thing to accomplish. By and large, it really depends on the type of organization and the type of workers typically employed by said organization. What works for one doesn’t necessarily work for the other. When a company then adds remote workers into the mix, one can see how it gets more difficult to see success in a strategy.
In some ways, it’s easy for human resources to develop this idea remote workers don’t need engagement. The opposite is actually true. Remote workers tend to be very productive. Most statistics back up this claim. A solid remote worker is typically described as:
- Self-Disciplined
- Adaptable
- Flexible
- Strong communicators
- Independent
- Confident
- Reliable
Even with all of that said, remote works want to feel like they belong with the company. It’s imperative they believe they are important and valued members of the company culture and its community. Remote workers, just like on-site workers, are susceptible to certain trends such as leaving the organization within the first year and leaving to pursue career advancement opportunities.
Facilitating Remote Work
All of that said, there are things company leaders and managers can do to set the engagement of the remote workforce on the right path.
- Expectations
The whole point of remote work is not having to go into the office. As such flexible work scheduling is typically a piece of the overall remote working strategy. To be more to the point – workers probably aren’t working a 9-to-5 shift if they’re off-site. That being said, managers can set particular expectations such as times the employee is expected to be “on the clock.” Some people refer to these as “busy hours” or “office hours.” It’s during this time remote workers should be expected to be prompt in their responses to emails and phone calls as well as be available to collaborate with the team.
- Inclusion
Normally when the word inclusion is used, it’s in connected to diversity. In this particular instance, the focus is not on the inclusion of workers from any other perspective than the fact they are part of a team. If a team is meeting at the office to discuss strategy or anything for that matter, remote workers should be allowed to participate. They should actually be expected to do so. With tools such as Zoom and Skype available, there’s no reason they should not be included in the conversation.
- Rewards
In a lot of instances, brick-and-mortar employees tend to think remote workers don’t work nearly as much. That’s actually a misconception. In most instances, remote workers work longer hours than those in the office; about 46 hours a week. That being said, it’s important to reward these workers. If they are hitting their goals, that needs to be recognized.
Productivity Case Study
One area where companies tend to cringe when it comes to remote work is in productivity. There are some real fears presented from leaders with respect to workers not being as productive when working from home as compared to those brick-and-mortar employees. Some of it, like it or not, stems from the need some leaders have with respect to seeing their direct reports work. Is this fear founded or unfounded? If the results of one case study (and several others) are to be believed, the answer is definitely unfounded.
Look to CTrip, China’s largest travel agency. A professor from Stanford studies whether or not remote work was “beneficial or harmful for productivity.” It took two years to complete the study and what the professor found is a profound increase in productivity for a group of remote workers over their in-office counterparts. It wasn’t all “sunshine and rainbows”, however. Those remote workers did report an increase in feeling lonely and many reported they didn’t want to work from home all the time. In the end, the recommendation was to create a hybrid of sorts; one that balanced working from home and in the office.
In summation
Here’s what we know. Right now, there are some 26 million Americans who work, at least part of the time, from home. And that number is only going to grow. According to a report from Buffer, 99 percent of employees say they want to work from home some of the time for the rest of their careers. Additionally, IWG says their research indicates 80 percent of workers would choose a position with flexible work over one that didn’t offer the benefit.
It can only be hypothesized the COVID-19 pandemic will continue to push employers to test the boundaries of remote working. In doing so, they will have to take a very hard look at their current employee engagement strategies to ensure workers still feel connected to the organization and each other. While it’s not the single most important thing when it comes to continued profitability, especially in an economy rocked by a worldwide coronavirus outbreak, it will go a long way to ensuring companies can continue delivering on business promises and supporting the bottom line and the company workforce.
By Mason Stevenson
Originally posted on hrexchangenetwork.com
by admin | May 30, 2019 | Health & Wellness, Work From Home
The winter doldrums have left most of the country and we are witnessing the arrival of spring. Just like the budding trees and baby animals signify a new start, so does a fresh cleaning of your home. But don’t let the spring cleaning stop with the physical place where you live—extend it to all corners of your life. Give your life a good spring cleaning by organizing, decluttering, and setting goals.
ORGANIZE
By now everyone knows who Marie Kondo is—the master of “The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up.” What began a worldwide phenomenon of “sparking joy” in your home can be applied to your work life as well. Start by organizing your thoughts. Write down the tasks you want to accomplish whether it be daily, monthly, or yearly. Calendar the tasks so you know when you want them completed and prioritize them so you know what importance you assign to each item. Prioritizing tasks helps you accept a request or confidently say “no” when someone asks you to do something knowing it doesn’t fit in with your priorities. Organizing tasks works for both your personal and work life.
DECLUTTER
A good decluttering session is good for the soul! Step back and look at your workspace—are there piles of paper stacked on your desk? What about that mound of things you keep saying you’ll take upstairs in your house? Do you have relationships that are cluttering up your life? Take an hour each week to sort through your workspace piles. Choose to save only the papers/magazines/notes that you need to complete your job or that you want to save for sentimental reasons. Toss the rest of those papers in the recycle bin! After you are able to pare down the piles, begin asking yourself if the next paper that comes across your desk needs to be saved, trashed, or recycled so that those mounds don’t grow into mountains again. The same goes for stuff around your house. Start that garage sale box, begin a keepsake box, and trash the rest. Finally, kick those toxic relationships to the curb. You know the ones—the relationships that suck the life out of you. If you have someone whose values and priorities don’t align with yours, choose to keep them at arm’s length so you can spend more time with the people who hold priority in your life.
SET GOALS
Goals are unlike resolutions. Resolutions are a firm decision to do or not to do something. “I resolve not to eat dessert after every meal.” Goals give direction to follow to achieve a desired outcome. For instance, a career goal may be to finish your college degree or obtain a special certification. A relationship goal could be to have weekly date night or to start a family. Financial goals may include paying down debt, setting aside money from each check for a summer vacation, or to begin regularly giving to a non-profit dear to your heart. Set goals as you spring clean your life to give yourself direction in how you spend your time and effort this year.
As you begin spring cleaning your life, you will be surprised what good things are able to flow into those corners that were previously inhabited by disorganization, clutter, or lack of focus. By giving yourself a chance to have a fresh start in your life, you are encouraging new growth. And new growth is always exciting!
by admin | Oct 24, 2018 | Human Resources, Work From Home, Workplace
In a tight labor market, a candidate’s potential commute can make a job more or less attractive. HumanResources reports that a quarter of employees surveyed had left a job because of the commute. When looking at just Millennials, the number jumps to one third. Employees can be choosy, selecting a job that offers more of what they want, and that means less of a commute. Companies can work around this by offering transportation amenities, flexible scheduling or more remote working opportunities.
Forbes has a recent interview with Tamara Littleton, founder of The Social Element, who’s successfully built a remote team at the social media management agency. She argues culture starts at the top. By treating people well, which includes offering remote opportunities, it sets a tone for the whole company. Creating opportunities for in-person meetings and gatherings balance any isolation that may happen. Then, more regular face-to-face communication, essential to build trust and teamwork, comes via video calls when email might otherwise be the default. Newsletters and webinars keep the team connected and ensure important messages aren’t missed. She can point to the success of her ideas with the hire of many senior team members, willing to sacrifice some pay for more flexibility.
When implementing remote-friendly strategies, there are plenty of success stories to draw inspiration. Entrepreneur has some tips from Zapier, a company that has been on the forefront of offering alternative working arrangements. In fact, they offer a “de-location” package to encourage employees to move from the cost-prohibitive Bay Area. Tools like Slack facilitate real-time communication, with tools to find ideal meeting times across time zones and channels themed for non-work related conversations. Bots regularly and randomly pair up employees to get a chance to know one another during a brief call. A semi-regular retreat brings people together in person and impromptu video dance parties make slow days more fun.
The takeaway? Being proactive and creative to build remote work policies can get you the employees you want, wherever they may be.
HumanResources
Travelling to and fro office may drive your employees to quit
https://www.humanresourcesonline.net/travelling-to-and-fro-office-may-drive-your-employees-to-quit/
Forbes
How To Build A Culture Of Trust In A Large Remote Team
https://www.forbes.com/sites/brettonputter/2018/10/04/how-to-build-a-culture-of-trust-in-a-large-remote-team/#5d4e5d23188c
Entrepreneur
This Company Hosts Virtual Dance Parties to Help Its 170 Remote Employees Feel Connected
https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/320411
by Bill Olson
Originally posted on ubabenefits.com
