Most businesses are asking their employees to work remotely to reduce the spread of coronavirus and protect the health and safety of their people. This shift produces a new set of challenges for business owners to support and stay connected with their newly remote workers. 

Here are some ideas for managing your workers remotely during the coronavirus crisis. 

Lead Support Team 

An essential part of this team’s responsibility will be to document challenges in real time, transparently prioritize those challenges, and assign key person(s) to find solutions. A team with these functions will help your business strive in moments of crisis. 

A Communication Hub 

A guidebook to communicate with all staff and update it frequently with your Lead Support Team for common questions around tools and access. This can start as a single business webpage with frequently asked questions. If you need assistance, Banki Designs offers web design services for small to medium size businesses. 

Communication strategy 

Consider creating a video conference room, teleconference room or even a private Facebook group where workers can hangout or come and go as they please. This can enable your staff to adopt to the change from office to working at home in a more relaxed way. It also demonstrates intentionality around everyday communication — an important factor that occurs naturally in an office setting and needs an immediate replacement in an isolated setting. In addition, your staff will expect frequent updates as managers gain new information in real time. 

Minimize Tools 

While operating remotely, your business should minimize tools need for work to be completed. Writing tools such as Google Docs, a chat tool like WhatsApp Chat Group and or a video conferencing platform such as Zoom are all you need to begin. If your team needs access to internal systems through a VPN, make certain that everyone has straightforward access and instructions on usage are clear.  

Channel communication into as limited places as possible to diminish inaccurate information. Business owners should proactively solve for mass misunderstanding when it comes to finding things such as policies, protocols, outreach processes and messaging. 

Drive cultural change 

The reality is people are naturally unwilling to change. Especially a change that is forced during moments of uncertainty or crisis.  But how do you deal with it head-on? Business Owners should be doing the groundwork to help workers recognize and embrace their new reality as it’s crucial to empowering your staff at this time. Its important that your staff understands that their contribution is important to the business success.  

Business owners are responsible for embracing the repetition of the remote process by being open about what is and is not working, and messaging this to your staff. It boils down to trust, communication, and company-wide support of collective goals.