WFH

How will we be managing our businesses and people with this work-from-home culture? These are the questions a lot of leaders have right now as we look at whether we want to return back to our offices at all. We have been given a great opportunity to examine our day to day practices, trends and habits as we assess if they are still what we need for the growth of our business.

While considering your options I urge you to also think about the following tips:

Trust

Many CEO’s and leaders were very hesitant about working from home. This demonstrated a lack of trust in their people. And we all know, that trust is one of the most important (if not the most important aspect) of any professional relationship. Due to unforeseen circumstances businesses were forced to allow people to work from home if they wanted the office duties to still be in operation. Putting us in a position where we have been forced to adapt. Now several months later it seems leaders are pleasantly surprised. The feelings of uncertainty, lack of trust and anxiety due to project lack of productivity are generally gone. Somehow when people need to persevere and do that they can with the cards they have been dealt... people adapt.

So even though the dog was present during the zoom calls, people wore pyjama pants with a collared shirt and every so often a parent had to take another break to feed the kids the work got done. So what can organizations do to prepare long term?

Set clear expectations

If you have not already created a remote working process/policy then I highly encourage you to do so. Everyone needs parameters, targets and deadlines - even CEO’s. You can have a management meeting via video to decide what your next 5-6 months will look like giving yourself flexibility which can bring you into the new year where you can revisit at that time to plan for 2021. Since life is not ‘normal’ I would not suggest to create too many set plans. Allow for flexibility so that the organization and all employees can easily adapt.

Home Office Set-Up

Many employees were working from their dining room tables, kids desk’s, and anywhere they could find silence. If you are a business thinking about allowing working from home long term provide a small budget to employees so they can get the best set up they can which also suits their ergonomic needs.

Seek out some office ergonomic tips and share them with your team. This helps your team be as productive as they can be and also diminishes the possibility of injury, time off in the future as well as helps with general mental health.

Technology

Pay for a secure video service for employees to use and, also reimburse them for their use of internet. This will ease people’s anxiety about usage and hacking which was unfortunately common during the early COVID days.

Fun

As many people are missing the workplace comradery, it’s important to keep this going especially when people are alone at home. Yes, many of your employees have partners and or families, however, we also all have work wives, work husbands and work friends. These ‘colleague’ conversations are lacking and finding ways to keep the fun going is important. Having a video call every Wacky Wednesday, or Thirsty Thursday and even a motivation Monday with some physical/stretching exercise. Keep those connections going as they are just as important as being productive. Let’s not forget that many people stay with companies because of the people and the environment, so do not let go of its importance just because you may not be seeing people face to face as much.

As leaders it is our role to be agile, flexible and adapts with the times, thus your employee experience should be part of the core values of your organization.

POST WRITTEN BY Josee Larocque Patton for Forbes Business Council

JLP is the CEO and Founder of THE HR ICU. Providing simple, affordable and time-efficient HR tools for all levels of people leaders in an organization.