As the global coronavirus outbreak continues, many workplaces are struggling to remain productive in the face of quarantines, travel restrictions, and efforts to limit in-person contact among their employees. While working remotely simply isn’t an option for many in the nonprofit sector, those who are able to work from home have been encouraged to avoid the office.
But working remotely is not as simple as throwing on some sweatpants and connecting to the internet. Maintaining a healthy, efficient, and productive work-from-home environment takes a lot of effort, on behalf of the organization and the individual employees. At Altruic Advisors, our accountants frequently telecommute and many staff members work 100% remotely. Over the years, we’ve learned a lot about maintaining a remote workforce, and we’re still learning more every day. If the coronavirus outbreak is forcing your organization to jump in head-first to a remote working environment, here are a few tips from our team to help smooth the transition:
Separate Work from Life
A healthy work-life balance is often the first thing to go in a remote working environment. When your workspace is only steps away from your living space, it can be difficult to prevent work from bleeding through into your non-work hours. While this can result in short-term productivity gains, it’s terrible for long-term morale. Unfortunately, nonprofit employees aren’t exactly known for their healthy work-life balance even in a traditional office environment. If you are moving your work into a home environment, you’ll need to be extremely conscious of setting boundaries.
Prioritize Project Management Systems
If your team is working remotely, you’ll need to make a greater effort to clarify responsibilities, assign tasks, and set deadlines. A digital project management system makes it easier to oversee projects and keep tabs on progress. This can be as simple as a shared Google Drive folder, or as complex as a custom-designed project management application. Information silos can be the Achilles’ heel of remote working environments, so make sure that all important information is captured in your project management system, rather than languishing in someone’s unread email inbox.
Make Meetings Virtual (Or Make It An Email Instead)
If you’re transitioning from in-person meetings to video conferencing, make sure all participants are aware of conference call etiquette. For example, during large group calls, it’s best to keep your microphone muted unless you’re speaking. (This avoids a cacophony of background noise on the line.) If you notice that many calls only ever involve one or two people speaking – and everyone else listening silently – there’s a good chance you can do away with that meeting entirely and just send an email instead.
Encourage Socializing
In a traditional office environment, you might get to chat with your co-workers over a cup of coffee or bump into someone from another department in the hall. These small daily moments can add up to a strong, closely-knit team. But in a remote environment, opportunities for socializing are few and far between. It’s important to consciously create those opportunities, whether that’s building an extra 10 minutes into a phone call purely for catching up, or scheduling social events like virtual happy hours. It may seem counterproductive to encourage staff to spend time not working, but the long-term benefits will greatly outweigh any minor loss of productivity.