2020 is the year that traditional office-dwellers traded water cooler talk for Zoom meetings. Many managers scrambled to adjust to their new normal and find best practices for working remotely.
While some states begin to open up for business, many jobs remain virtual for safety reasons. Some businesses have found that remote work isn’t just a temporary solution but a long-term business plan for growth and sustainability.
E-Typist is a virtual legal transcription and assistance service. Working remotely is the basis of our business model. Our team of typists and virtual assistants located across the United States are a testament to the fact that you can grow a business without ever meeting in person. Here are our five best practices for working remotely:
- Communicate Expectations
If there’s anything quarantine has taught most Americans, it’s that working remotely can bring a lot of distractions. Just ask working parents trying to homeschool and still punch the clock remotely. A key to success for remote work is to effectively communicate what you expect from your team to stay on the productivity train. Do you have a response time you want your team to meet? Your team cannot exceed your expectations if they don’t know them. Communicate them clearly and check often to see where your team needs support.
- Focus on Feedback
Who knows better how to improve the day-to-day workings of your business than the people doing the work every day. As a virtual manager, it can be easy to get disconnected. Ask your team to take down an inventory of what they do and open a dialogue about what’s working and gather their ideas about how to fix their pain points.
Prioritize checking in regularly with your team so that you can understand challenges and create concrete solutions for success.
- Build Community Among Team Members
If you’ve ever run something by a co-worker before completing it, you know the value of having a workplace peer you can trust to help you accomplish your best work with confidence. You don’t have to sacrifice the community aspect of your team when you work remotely but you do have to invest in it. Working from home can be really isolating. Think about how to use digital communication tools like Slack to encourage inter-employee conversation.
- Be Adaptable
It’s likely that you’ve heard the phrase “unprecedented times” more times than you ever imagined over the past three months. Quarantine changed so much about daily life that routine may still be in flux. Work together as a team to adjust. Re-imagine challenging practices that don’t work and remain flexible to find the best solutions for each individual team member.
- Create A Schedule
When your home is also your office, it can be easy to stay logged on burning the midnight oil. This can cause your team to burn out or start to resent their virtual set-up. One of the best practices for working remotely is to stick to a schedule that works for you, meets your productivity goals and most importantly, still allows for your own self care. Working remotely does not mean you work more than you would in the office. Create proper boundaries to ensure a sustainable work-life balance from home.
Working remotely can present challenges for managers and employees. It’s crucial that both are invested in the success of this set-up. Managers need to facilitate communication and expectation to ensure practices are effective from home. Employees need to provide feedback about how to improve processes and create a set schedule to stay on track!
Struggling to keep up with your quarantine work load? Let E-Typist help you out! Learn more about how our virtual assistant services can streamline your process.