How To Manage Remote Employees, In The Wake Of Coronavirus

I do not recall ever having to go through a time like this where businesses are having to temporarily close down to prevent the spread of a virus. I cannot even imagine how this is affecting so many people's lives, especially those that live paycheck by paycheck. I can only hope that their companies are indeed taking care of them if they are not allowed back to work.

Remain Calm as a Leader

People need a leader they can count on to guide them through the uncertainty of what is happening. Empathizing with your employees gives them a security of being understood and they too will remain calm and open to what needs to be done next. Keeping the virus conversation out of this situation and making this more about what is best for the employees will keep your employees more focused on how to get their day-to-day work done while out of the office.

Tip:

Hiring a virtual assistant is one way of making sure some of the administrative tasks are getting done while your remote employees are working on more important work. Hiring a virtual assistant will help ensure that when your offices are back in business, nothing fell behind and you can pick up where you left off.

Virtual Meetings

Things happen when employees are not in the office. The momentum seems to go off track. Holding a morning virtual meeting with your department heads can help keep things under control. A suggestion would be to have a virtual conference room streaming online and people can jump in and talk to one another as needed. Depending on the size of the company, this can work for department heads and their teams to ensure the work is getting done. There are so many ways to do this. There are platforms like GoToMeeting or Zoom to be able to do this.

Check-in

It is unfortunate, but this does happen, some management personnel tend to disappear when they are not in the office. So by them not working in the office during this time does not mean that they are not to do work. Making sure you have a dedicated time, 2 or 3 times a day, where they virtually check-in and provide any updates needed, is a sure way to ensure their departments are working efficiently.

Working from Home

When employees are only used to working from an office and not from home can bring their productivity down. At home, there are many distractions, children, television, social media, etc. And having the discipline to overcome those distractions is not easy. To ensure your employee's productivity does not go too far into the wayside, you need to make it clear that they will be held accountable for updating their supervisor on their progress daily.

These are just some tips on how to manage your remote employees. Make a schedule on when you will be meeting remotely with department heads and for how long. When people know they are being held accountable to check-in daily, they tend to keep their mind on the work at hand.

I hope that the next few weeks or months are as productive for you all and don't forget, there are virtual assistants like myself, that are ready at a drop of a dime to assist you with your business needs.