Remote Working in a Crisis: A Workplace Toolkit [White Paper]
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The document provides guidance for remote working and managing remote teams during a crisis. It suggests establishing frequent communication with clear expectations. Use collaboration technology to maintain connections and consider individual preferences for communication. Offer encouragement and support for wellbeing. Social interaction is important to prevent isolation, so encourage virtual informal meetings. Take care of your own wellbeing as well.
Remote Working in a Crisis: A Workplace Toolkit [White Paper]
- 1. a Workplace Toolkit W H I T E P A P E R Remote Working in a Crisis:
- 2. 2 Remote Working in a Crisis: A Workplace Toolkit Dear customers of Sage HR This year of unprecedented challenges has brought a series of big company moments to organisations. In the past, it was the CEO or CFO from the executive team, breaking the news surrounding changes and future plans. Yet this year has seen HR leaders step into the spotlight to have their moment of organisational wide leadership. Organisations more than ever before have recognised the importance of empathy, compassion and focusing on ways to support and serve the needs of their people. The previously so-called nice to haves of caring for employees, consigned to the HR department alone, now permeates the culture of all departments and the teams within them. CHRO’s and HR teams have been leading by example, starting every interaction and conversation with questions to understand the person beyond the role, “How are you?” “How is your family?” “Are you ok?” To this extent, good communication, coupled with empathy can be the difference between employees feeling engaged and supported or not. The 2020 Edelman Trust Barometer found that employer communications were the most credible source of information — across 10 countries. Moving forward the focus for organisations now is to relentlessly consider the needs of your people. Helping them to feel informed and confident in the actions they can make for themselves during the crisis. Best, Kaspar Upmanis VP Category Leader, HR & Payroll
- 3. 3 Remote Working in a Crisis: A Workplace Toolkit Leading & Operating in a Remote Team, During in a Crisis Guidance to Give Your Team on Remote Working Supporting Virtual Team Interactions Holding One-to-One Conversations Remotely Getting the Most Out of Remote Events Promoting Wellbeing in a Virtual Team Feel Far Less Remote Thanks to Sage HR’s Latest Features Sage HR - Useful Resources 4 9 11 13 15 17 18 21 Contents People Centred Teaming Success Innovation Wins Collaborate Together
- 4. 4 Remote Working in a Crisis: A Workplace Toolkit Leading or operating in a team that is now working entirely remotely, could be a whole new way of working for you and your organisation, presenting challenges to many businesses. Fewer still may have worked in this way, during a crisis. Here Sage HR are sharing their expertise on some things to think through when considering your approach on how to respond to the challenges and opportunities being felt during this time. Establish frequent communication, check ins and focus where it matters With your wider teams and the individuals within, the most valuable thing to focus on is ensuring you have frequent communication, reflecting the kind of communication you would have if you were working together in an office environment. The most important thing is that communication, be it through calls or video meetings, are regular, consistent and scheduled to happen in a format where colleagues know their concerns and questions will be heard and supported. Leading & Operating in a Remote Team, During in a Crisis
- 5. 5 Remote Working in a Crisis: A Workplace Toolkit There are some people who enjoy working from home and others who may not, based on a variety of factors. Not every- one’s home working environment will be conducive to a positive experience, some colleagues may be house sharing, some may not have a suitable workspace, others may simply miss the social connection that comes as a result of working with others in an office. It’s important to understand the context and unique circumstances of an individual's working environment, whilst recognizing that different personality styles may have different preferences and work styles that may not currently be catered to. Helping individuals and teams adapt to the change and to understand how to be as interactive and productive as possible, is important. Discuss prioritisation with your team so the most important tasks and the actions that add most value are the ones that you focus on first and foremost. The Sage HR team is all about effective communications: “We are meeting daily for virtual stand-ups which keeps the team well connected, and our manager always encourages the use of video cameras.”
- 6. Make full use of Collaboration Technology, such as Teams, Slack or Zoom As a collaboration, instant messaging and video conferencing tool. Remember that visual cues—i.e. webcam on—help reduce the sense of isolation among the team and are particularly useful for complex or sensitive conversations. Equally, it’s important to take on board that using webcams may feel like an uncomfortable transition for some and not everyone will feel comfortable with sharing their home environment with team colleagues and managers. Be prepared to accommodate individual preferences to help transition and adoption. Establish “rules of engagement” Remote work becomes more efficient and rewarding for everyone when expectations are set for the frequency, means, and ideal timing of communications for their teams. It also helps to be clear with your team, on what time will be made available for follow ups or more individual discussions, particularly on issues that may be not be possible to discuss on the next call. Be aware of the periods where you are more available for discussions on particular or more sensitive issues that can’t wait until the next regular call. Being flexible in your approach is going to be important as new ways of working and new routines are established. There will be an inevitable period of trial and error to work out what works best and what can be evolved to work better. 6 Remote Working in a Crisis: A Workplace Toolkit
- 7. 7 Remote Working in a Crisis: A Workplace Toolkit Offer encouragement and emotional support As a leader, manager or colleague within your business, it’s important to remember that there are stresses that could be affecting everyone's well-being and performance during this time. It’s valuable to encourage a culture where colleagues at all levels acknowledge stress, listen to anxieties and concerns, and empathise with their personal challenges. If a colleague is showing signs of struggling, but has not yet raised the issue, then being comfortable with having uncomfortable conversations and initiating discussions by asking “how is this remote working situation working out for you so far?” may give you clues as to how a person is feeling. Once you ask the questions, be sure to listen carefully to the response and state it back briefly to check you’ve understood it correctly. Although it may often be hard in situations that have been forced on us all, try to let the colleague’s concern, rather than your own, be the focus of this type of conversation. There are some more tips on holding one-to-ones during this time in this Sage HR toolkit. Social interaction in your teams is important Remembering that social interaction in combination with ‘doing the work’ and performing in our roles is an important part of team collaboration and cohesion. Encourage a cultural norm for holding informal conversations about non-work topics, establish virtual coffee meetings, drinks or pizza breaks. These types of events may initially feel forced or awkward, but research tells us that experienced managers of remote workers, and the workers themselves, say that virtual events promote a sense of belonging and help reduce feelings of isolation - which is so essential at this time. If you’re struggling with ideas on how to get started with remote social activities, engage your team for ideas, asking them to share how they would like to interact socially and what may feel like fun for them. It can also work well to kick off the call, or wrap the call with some basic social interaction just for non-work items. Take a look at the ideas in this toolkit to get you started. https://www.sage.com/en-gb/products/cakehr/
- 8. 8 Remote Working in a Crisis: A Workplace Toolkit Take care of yourself too, and remember Sage HR are in this with you and your team Here at Sage HR we believe all our customers and their organizations are heroes… but that doesn’t mean they have to be superheroes! As the old saying goes, you can’t pour from an empty cup, so be sure to take care of yourself as well as the colleagues you lead and manage. In a situation of ongoing concerns, the stress response system remains active, which creates chronic fatigue. Take your own regular breaks, set boundaries around your work, eat well, sleep enough and get regular exercise. And accept things are going to go wrong - this is not the time for control or perfection. If your routine or best intentions aren’t successful one day or week, that’s ok. Be kind to yourself in identifying what is working, what isn’t and what could be changed. Remember to reach out to those who can support you too, that may be a trusted colleague, business partner, mentor or coach and seek the support you too may need with the challenges of leading a remote team. It’s also valuable to remember that if you’re personally unsure of how to lead, manage or operate remotely, there are a host of valuable tools and resources available via Sage HR that you can draw on for guidance, advice and support. Consider what you want people to remember about your organisation's vision and goals during this time What is the mission and vision of your organisation and how has this needed to adapt during this time of crisis? Considering how to help the vision remain at the forefront of colleagues' minds is important in the remote working and remote from each other situation we find ourselves in. Research on emotional intelligence tells us that colleagues look to their leaders & managers for cues about how to react to sudden changes or crisis situations. Research suggests that the most effective leaders both acknowledge stress and anxiety from their team but also make it clear they have confidence in their team’s ability to pull together to navigate through challenging times - Helping your team to have clarity of focus on what your organization is working towards and keeping the common goals at the forefront of everyone's minds will respond to the situation with a sense of purpose and focus. https:/ /support.cake.hr/en/ https:/ /support.cake.hr/en/
- 9. Sage HR have created a checklist to help in guiding and communicating with colleagues consistently on this topic, the checklist is just relevant to colleagues at all levels of the organisation, from leaders to entry level professionals. Establish a routine that works for you, your team and your stakeholders. Remember to Incorporate tasks, meetings, check-ins and breaks. It is very easy to get absorbed in calls and emails at home, without taking the natural breaks that being in the traditional work environment affords you to take. Develop a practice of blocking out time in your diary for independent working time, and giving yourself tangible goals for each day, all will help you manage your time better. Be flexible. Need to change your well-planned routine? It’s not the end of the world! Being flexible with your approach is going to be important as we re-set into our new ways of working and new routine. It’s inevitable there will be a period of trial and error to find out what works best for you and your team. 9 Remote Working in a Crisis: A Workplace Toolkit Guidance to Give Your Team on Remote Working Be mindful of both distractions and becoming too head-down. People initially think they’ll be distracted by TV, biscuits, doing household work, but the reality is the challenge can more often be with guarding yourself from creeping hours on a daily basis. Without having the commute, stopping by a coffee shop on the way to the office, or the walks in between meetings, having stop or down times can feel more challenging to come by. Have your ‘stop’ times down firmly where you can. If due to childcare/family care, you need to flex your working day, build that into your schedule too – if you need to log back on after dinner to cover your tasks/meet your commitments/hours then do what works best for you, your work commitments and the needs presented by this disrupted period. Discuss prioritisation within your teams, engaging managers and all colleagues to help ensure the most important tasks and actions that add most value are the ones that are focused on first. Don’t get drawn into FOMO (Fear of Missing Out). Everyone is in the same boat trying to stay productive and keep on track. If someone forgets to invite you to a meeting, don’t take it personally! Proactively reach out.
- 10. 10 Remote Working in a Crisis: A Workplace Toolkit Mental health and wellbeing. Think about what’s important to you and schedule breaks to get away from your screen for a moment, factoring in fresh air, exercise and eating. Stay connected. Remember that bringing people to life in video calls, by using webcams can help bridge the connection. Encouraging a culture of comfortableness with cameras being on whenever virtual meetings are taking place can help. Seeing people in virtual real life can offer a boost of connection and reduce any feelings of isolation. Get into a regular rhythm for interactive set-up with your contacts and teams, whether it’s daily virtual coffee breaks or group chats on using collaboration tools. Remember that if you’re an organisation that operates regionally or globally, different time zones may also need to be considered when scheduling connections. Be supportive. A quick instant message, call or check in can really brighten someone’s day. Share your ideas amongst your teams to keep each other fresh. Practical challenges. Make your working space as comfortable as you can. Think about what helps you be productive, whether that’s having good day light, a supply of drinks to hand, music in the background or complete silence. Remember it’s important to align with the approved IT tools in your organisation, utilizing the tools that are agreed and established amongst colleagues helps ensure continuity and avoid any compliance or IT risk issues. Conversations with line managers are key to agreeing individual working arrangements, so please point to the importance of what these may include for your organization for arranging and agreeing to specific ways of working. Remember, this change in working style is temporary not permanent. As many organisations have made this switch to home working whilst we work through a pandemic, it’s important to remind yourselves that the challenges being Ensure communications on guidance and practices are shared openly amongst your teams
- 11. 11 Remote Working in a Crisis: A Workplace Toolkit At Sage HR we have set up virtual lounges, to aid team communications and give colleagues the feel of interacting together in real time. “Virtual lounges are fun and a nice little break from working from home alone. Laughing regularly is important at this difficult time.” In this new, temporary, working set up we all find ourselves in, it is even more important to find ways to support colleagues in connecting socially to keep engagement levels high. Your team may be brimming with ideas, or you may just not have the creative ability right now, which is perfectly understandable. So here are a few ideas to get you going. You could run these at the start of a regular team get together, or organise a dedicated session-whatever feels right for your team at the time. Supporting Virtual Team Interactions
- 12. 12 Remote Working in a Crisis: A Workplace Toolkit Ahead of the meeting, send around a few ice breaker type questions and invite colleagues to reply all; use the meeting to explore colleagues’answers. Or you could ask the questions live in the meeting if colleagues are comfortable thinking on their feet: If you could eat only one food for the rest of your life, what would it be? What superhero power would you choose and why? What advice would you give your 16 year old self? Who would you have dinner with, living or dead? If you could visit anywhere in the world unconstrained by budget or time, where would you go and why? Who is it? Ahead of the meeting, ask each colleague to send you a fact about themselves that others do not know about them yet. During the meeting, read then aloud to the group so the responses are kept anonymous. Have the team guess which fact belongs to which team member. They can either cast votes and discover if they got them right at the end, or vote as you go along. Take a picture Ahead of the meeting, ask everyone to take a photo of an object in their house that means something to them (or bring it with them to the meeting if they can carry it!), and ask each colleague to present on why they’ve chosen it. Virtual coffee break There is value in simply arranging a short break where everyone brings their chosen daytime drink and chews the fat. It helps process what is going on for all of us as individuals and promotes team bonding. Setting the session up as one where work talk is not allowed, will help to keep the coffee break light touch in sentiment. Team bake off Ahead of the meeting, ask everyone who would like to, to bake something that represents their story e.g. their culture, the country they live in, something they love to make, something their mum used to make for them. During the meeting, ask colleagues to share the stories and eat the goodies with each other virtually.
- 13. 13 Remote Working in a Crisis: A Workplace Toolkit Your role as a manager of people has never been more important in helping your colleagues feel connected, supported and focused. Here’s a short guide to help you have conversations with your individual team members.. Before the conversation Holding One-to-One Conversations Remotely Check in with yourself. What this means is assessing whether you are in the right physical and mental condition to have a conversation right now? If not, it’s probably best to reschedule and that’s ok. During this time, it’s important to remember that the challenges are impacting everyone and collectively, we’re all in this together. Your team members will understand if you need to reorganise a meeting, just remember to communicate and share - That’s what will help you and others to work through this time. Be ready to be clear about the priorities right now. But to also remember the importance of supporting your team and each other at a human level too. By being clear on priorities, you’re helping each team member to understand where they should put the time which in turn will help them to balance their plate of work and home life.
- 14. Top tips on how to have a successful conversation 14 Remote Working in a Crisis: A Workplace Toolkit Listen more than you speak to create space for colleagues to share their individual experience. Show empathy and share you own challenges and experiences to role model open dialogue. Try to be on camera and avoid distractions - this helps with both the first two points. How are you? How are your family members and loved ones? How are you adjusting to the changes we’re all having to make? What’s working? What are your biggest challenges? What are the most impactful things you think you should spend your time on right now? Are any of those at risk? If so, what can be pushed back, given to someone else, or taken away? What support and resources do you need to help you be successful during this time? How else can I help? Make sure you both leave the conversation with an agreement on where the team member should prioritise their time, any adjustments to expectations required and a plan to follow up on how things are progressing. Try these questions to structure the conversation: Check out these Sage HR wfh resources for more ideas on how to support working from home and managing remote teams. Avoid forcing conversations about work or personal life with your team members. It may be the case that individuals are having a hard time, which could be helped by reviewing their work load or putting in place supportive work or buddying arrange- ments with a co-worker. It may also be helpful to encourage individuals to take some leave where possible, or to simply be proactive in organising follow up conversations to provide further support. You may also have other support partners in your organisa- tion to draw on, from human resources partners to employee assistance programmes. “My manager is organising weekly catch-up meetings. She is supportive and listens to issues. She is continuing to give feedback on the business.” https:/ /blog.cake.hr/category/wfh/
- 15. Managing interpersonal dynamics and creating an inclusive environment are harder in virtual meetings, particularly larger events that have been forced to go online. Here are some things to think through as you prepare and lead entirely virtual meetings. 15 Remote Working in a Crisis: A Workplace Toolkit Getting the Most Out of Remote Events Stay on time, be clear on your purpose and your desired outcomes Ask others in the team to run parts of bigger events to share the load “We need to continue to develop and implement our ability to work emotely— we should use this opportunity to deepen our knowledge further on how to do it well.” Top tips on how to have a successful conversation Give out pre-reading to ensure time spent together is as useful as possible 20 0.62
- 16. Get creative Think about how you might use webinars, pre-recorded core messages and get virtual break out groups going. But stay realistic- it is not going to be as effective as a face-to-face session. Use your camera- at a basic level it encourages focus and presence, and supports both effective verbal and non-verbal communication. Be mindful of time zones- if you had been intending for everyone to travel to be in the same time zone, encourage colleagues to get together to cover and share where time zones are too extreme. Agree clear ground rules and transparency on ownership to maximise psycho- logical safety. Use energisers to lift the mood throughout and to encourage connections. Celebrate home life interruptions: it is very likely that some colleagues will be interrupted by a young child or pet. Rather than allow this to cause embarrassment, enjoy it and use it as an opportunity to get to know each other better. You could even have an energiser around this- we’ve included one in this pack Take a picture. Manage everyone’s energy: work in short segments of a maximum of 90 minutes with plenty of breaks- both for non-work check-ins with colleagues, and for personal downtime and to check emails. Support diversity of styles and needs by mixing up content and methods in your agenda – e.g. follow an analytical debate around numbers with a relationship building exercise. Create conditions for a proper debate: in virtual meetings it can be harder to ensure all perspectives are aired. Stick to open ended questions and check in with everyone before converging on action. 16 Remote Working in a Crisis: A Workplace Toolkit
- 17. Making the time for well-being Mindfulness and meditation are well known to support mental well-being. There are a number of app’s available that can support you and team members in developing a meditation practice, which can help relieve stress and anxiety. 17 Remote Working in a Crisis: A Workplace Toolkit For some of your team, this new world may be getting on top of them. As a people leader in your organisation, you know how critical it is to empower team members with the tools to stay healthy. It is important to remember that wellbeing means something different to everyone and can be achieved in many ways, so if you have established programs in your organisation, drawing on these can be supportive for all. If you don’t have programs established, then this may open up future activities to support your team to optimise their state of wellbeing. Calm is the number one app for sleep meditation and relaxation and was named by the Centre for Humane Technology as the“world's happiest app.” Headspace is one of the world’s most popular mindfulness training apps. So popular in fact that colleagues at Sage HR and Sage all have free access to the 1000+ hours of bitesize support available. Sattva is a meditation app offering guided meditations & chants, and has been designed to help you meditate every day. Mindfulness and meditation techniques can easily be used in everyday life to improve resilience and the ability to focus and let go. Promoting Wellbeing in a Virtual Team https://www.calm.com/ https://www.headspace.com/ https://www.sattva.life/ https://www.sattva.life/
- 18. Sage HR in response to these challenges and the feedback of our customers, are launching three powerful software features to help you solve workforce management challenges. Freeing up more of your time which in turn can be focused on creating great employee workforce experiences. 18 Remote Working in a Crisis: A Workplace Toolkit There’s no mistaking the global shift taking place right now in the world of work. Organisations of all sizes, have taken steps to become remote workers in answer to the unprecedented impact that COVID-19 has made. Feel Far Less Remote Thanks to Sage HR’s Latest Features https:/ /blog.sage.hr/working-from-home-how-your-business-can-survive-coronavirus-covid19-onslaught/ https:/ /blog.sage.hr/working-from-home-how-your-business-can-survive-coronavirus-covid19-onslaught/
- 19. Announcements feature The Announcements feature in Sage HR has been designed to help you share important news, quickly with the entire company. The very act of communicating timely and effectively in the current age of COVID-19 related changes happening all the time, from local lockdowns to changes in health & safety measures will be a true value add. Using this feature you can create and publish announcements in a built in newsfeed, so sharing everything from a new hire joining the team, updates & changes to HR policies, through to a virtual team pizza get together, can be shared quickly, whilst encouraging interaction and participation. https:/ /support.sage.hr/en/articles/3980517-introduction-to-announcements https:/ /support.sage.hr/en/articles/3980517-introduction-to-announcements 19 Remote Working in a Crisis: A Workplace Toolkit Surveys feature The Sage HR Surveys feature has been designed to give your employees a voice, which in turn, for you as HR or an employer will empower you to better understand the needs, opinions, views and feelings of your people on topics that matter. It’s always good practice to engage with your employees, gathering vital intelligence on how they’re feeling about planned changes that may be about to take place, how engaged they’re feeling in their work or as part of their team and on business critical decisions that may be impacting the wider organisation. https:/ /support.sage.hr/en/articles/3325242-who-can-see-my-survey-answers https:/ /support.sage.hr/en/articles/3325242-who-can-see-my-survey-answers
- 20. 20 Remote Working in a Crisis: A Workplace Toolkit Bonus feature - Mobile HR The Sage HR Mobile app transfers the power of self service & simplicity from the web-based application to your handheld device. The functionality means that you and your team can access Sage HR’s features wherever you’re located, but also whilst you’re on the move. The mobile HR app also includes a company directory which provides powerful transparency so that employees can access colleague profiles, contact information and department information. Great for if your teams are cross-collaborating with other members from different teams or locations. https:/ /sage.hr/features/mobile?ref=blog&utm_source=blog https:/ /sage.hr/features/mobile?ref=blog&utm_source=blog https:/ /support.sage.hr/en/articles/3325242-who-can-see-my-survey-answers eSignature feature The eSignature feature responds to increasing demands to leverage the power of digital processes that can support remote working, by replacing the need to be physically located in the same place. In short, this feature enables you and your team to sign documents electronically. Should you need to share the document with multiple signatories, then you can easily add additional names by selecting an add recipient option. And by using the flexible drag and drop field capability, it’s easy to take control of the document layout by positioning signature fields where you need them to go on the docu- ment. https:/ /support.sage.hr/en/articles/4444863-introduction-to-esignature https:/ /support.sage.hr/en/articles/4444863-introduction-to-esignature
- 21. 21 Remote Working in a Crisis: A Workplace Toolkit Sage HR has a wealth of resources available to support you, your team and your organisation in performing at your best. Here is a selection. Sage HR - Useful Resources The Management & how to manage teams remotely section of the Sage HR blog — shares a series of articles written by industry HR experts. You will also find a selection of articles written on productivity and WFH curated to support you and your team make the very most of top tips on working effectively. Sage HR are here to help in setting up and supporting your team for success. Remember to look out for your monthly newsletter from us on the latest hints and tips from us landing in your in-box. https:/ /blog.cake.hr/category/management/ https:/ /blog.cake.hr/category/management/ https:/ /blog.cake.hr/category/productivity/ https:/ /blog.cake.hr/category/productivity/ https:/ /blog.cake.hr/category/wfh/ 20 0.62
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