We are living in unprecedented times, in the midst of a global health crisis. It’s clear that one of the obvious solutions will be that more and more employees across the planet will be asked to work from home. The US Center for Disease Control (CDC) has already been recommending that, if you are sick, stay home.
In that vein, here are some suggestions for those that have never worked from home…
- Find the right technology that works for you and your team to stay connected. There are lots of options – Skype, Teams, Zoom, Facetime, Slack.
- Use video whenever possible. It’s easy to turn it off, but video will help keep you all connected.
- Get a good headset, microphone, camera, internet connection - for everyone. Poor technology can unfairly marginalize you in a conversation and stifle your voice.
- Create a backchannel chat. There is the “on stage” of the meeting, but make sure you have set up side channels to chat with people off stage, just as you would whisper or pass a note in a real-time meeting. If a group is together and some are remote, make sure everyone that is remote has a private backchannel to someone in the room to break into the conversation.
- Consider an always-on video or chat channel. In the workplace, a lot happens when people bump into one another in the hallway – ad hoc conversations. Consider creating an ‘always on” video – or a chat channel to help create these ad hoc interactions.
- Schedule more frequent get-togethers to account for lack of human interactions. When people move to online, something like having lunch together will move from stopping by a neighbor’s desk to something that doesn’t happen. Make time to add a schedule invite to formally take lunchtime together.
- Include everyone – or leave a footprint. IRL (in real life) we tend to have a conversation with 2-3 people – and then follow up. Online, we might take a shortcut and just ask one person – and miss the perspective and benefit of including the second person. Be deliberate about making sure everyone, including seemingly marginal players, are in the online conversation – the same as they would be in the room in person – even if they are not saying anything at the time.
- Join the meeting five minutes ahead to make sure the tech is working.
- Record the meetings. While this can obviously help those who couldn’t attend, it also allows people to see how they show up. It’s important for managers to review. Did someone have garbled audio making their viewpoint was not as valuable?
- If the group is together, make sure someone is responsible to pay attention and give the floor to those joining remotely. If you are the one person who is remote, find a friend who is in the room.
We have unprecedented new challenges. If COVID-19 becomes more widespread, it may be likely that more people will be working remotely and in isolation. Remote work has some benefits – flexibility, commute traffic avoidance, etc – and health benefits in this case – but can offer challenges as well. Building a competency around remote work will help every company as it broadens the population for recruiting and grows the talent pool, and while there are challenges, these can be overcome.
Ross Smith, FRSA Modern Workplace Engineering - Supportability Ross is a Fellow of the Royal Society of the Arts and blogger. Author of The Practical Guide to Defect Prevention and holds seven patents. He is currently a Ph.D. Scholar, part of University College Dublin's SmartLab program, researching the impact of AI, robotics, and automation on worker displacement. He has worked at Microsoft for over 28 years and is a member of the Leadership Council for the Anita Borg Institute, co-chair for Grace Hopper Organizational Transformation track. He is a co-leader of ABI Local in Seattle, and part of the gender partner LT and ”male ally” panel discussions at the IEEE Women in Technology and National Center for Women in Technology (NCWIT) Summit and TechCrunch. Work with iUrbanTeen and Native Americans at Microsoft. He is a member of the board of Spreeha, working to break the cycle of poverty. Developed 42projects to promote cultural change, develop organizational trust and improve the lives of the managed. To help develop the next generation’s interest in STEAM (STEM+Arts), he works with Skype in the Classroom program and events like iUrbanTeen day at Microsoft. He was invited to the White House for discussion on women in STEM. Keynote speaker for the ARTBA’s Transovation 2014-2016. The work of his teams has been mentioned in Forbes, The Economist, the Wall Street Journal, PSFK, the American Journal of Play, Harvard Business Review, and the London School of Business. He has presented at SXSW, MIT Solve, Grace Hopper, Serious Play, Games for Change, and several other large conferences. His academic research papers are published on ResearchGate. He is a blogger for SHRM has worked on Skype Translator. He is an avid reader and loves to travel.
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