The world has come to a standstill. We’re working from home and practising social distancing as COVID-19 takes over. But, there’s no time like the present.
Remote working doesn’t mean business stops, now is the time to break the barriers. Release your creativity, and work as a team more than ever before.
Remote working and social distancing might seem quite lonely, but there’s things you can put into place as a team to keep communications going.
“Communication works for those who work at it.”
John Powell
Technology for remote working
We’re very lucky that technology today is so advanced. We have no excuse, to not speak to our colleagues, friends or family. There are many different platforms available, such as Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Skype and the list goes on.
Tech Radar, have compiled a list of the best video conferencing softwares, both paid and free. Figure out which is best for you and your team, and fire away! It may be worth putting together some short instructions on how to get going, to make the process as easy as possible.
Check-ins
To keep up the communication with your team, you should schedule in daily calls, or video calls. Use your daily call to catch up on the day before and to check in to see how everyone is doing.
Working remotely also means not having access to most of our office basics like a desk, and the right chair. So ensure your colleagues are comfortable and working in the right space. Most importantly make sure they’re taking breaks – the last thing you want is for your colleagues to burn out at such a difficult time.
This works for more than just your work team, use this with friends and family. Set a time to check in with them, or have virtual lunch breaks with them.
Meetings
Meetings are an important part of business, whether that be in house or with clients across the globe. Just because we’re now working remotely, doesn’t mean these have to be cancelled.
Again using the technology we have available, schedule any meetings you have as video calls. This means you’ll still be able to have that face-to-face interaction. Make sure you communicate with those involved prior, as working from home may slightly change schedules.
If you do for any reason need to cancel meetings, make sure you let them know. Communication is key!
Training
During this time learning and development doesn’t need to stop. There are many platforms and ways you can take your training online.
“An organization’s ability to learn, and translate that learning into action rapidly, is the ultimate competitive advantage.”
Jack Welch, former General Electric CEO
You can hold online classes through any of the platforms named already, or through Google Classrooms. Or, if you have access to offline content that you made previously, you can easily use an authoring tool platform to quickly put courses together and distribute to your learners. As you would do in a classroom, you can set a time and a date for learners to complete their courses.
Authoring tool platforms are becoming more seamless and easy to use. Our authoring tool, Near-Life™ CREATOR is an easy to use authoring tool, that comes with support and resources to guide you through and get you on your way to creating online courses at a time when they’re needed the most.
Group chats
Communication will always be the key to effective team work – whether you are remote or in the office. As well as the daily calls or video calls it’s a good idea to maintain regular communication through group chats or instant messaging.
As you’ll want to keep things as ‘normal’ as possible, group chats make conversations you’d normally have in the office more casual rather than email. There are various platforms you can use for this such as Slack, Whatsapp and Google Hangouts. Again choose the one best for you and your team, and get going.
Using a group chat may also mean less time spent on calls for little questions, meaning more productivity.
The future
Doing all of these things should make teamwork better than it has been before. We’ll all have a new-found love for technology but more importantly, we will have learnt to trust in each other more and to communicate more.
This isn’t going to be forever, but let’s make it work to the best of our abilities, so that we can achieve the most out of our businesses, colleagues and clients whilst protecting our well-being.