March 2020

Best Methods to Manage Employees Working Remotely

Mar 31, 2020 Comments

Best Methods to Manage Employees Working Remotely

The best methods to manage employees working remotely is like the best practises for working onsite. The principles are the same.

The coronavirus crisis is forcing people to work from home if they can. This might be new for many companies and employees even though working remotely has been a growing trend.

Know Yourself and Your Employees

To be an effective manager and leader you need to know yourself and understand each employee. What is your inborn style of leadership? Do you tend to be too laissez faire or are you more of a micro-manager?

How self-sufficient and independent are your employees? How much supervision do they require? How does stress affect them?

Thinking through these questions and others will help you in your plan to manage people who you cannot walk over to and see what they’re doing and start a conversation.

Set Commitments and Expectations on Performance

To avoid micro-managing and having surprises when performance is below expectations, it’s best to discuss what the employee will work on and accomplish from home.

Put these commitments in writing and discuss how you will track productivity together so there are no surprises when things are due.

Clarify and Provide Support

Writing down employee commitments is good, but you also need to make your own support commitments to each employee and put those in writing as well.

What tools will the employee need to meet their goals? Technology is obvious but perhaps explore obstacles such as new distractions they might have at home that they did not have in the office.

Manage and Coach

Managing performance is about holding people accountable to their commitments and measuring their progress.

Coaching them is providing the support and problem-solving questions to help them take responsibility to meet their commitments.

Set Follow-up Sessions

Once you have commitments in writing it’s crucial to set times to meet online or by phone and discuss progress. Set a time to review when you write down the commitments and set the next discussion time at the end of each meeting.

Feedback

Everyone needs feedback, both positive and constructive. The positive feedback should be focused on what they are doing to overcome any personal challenges like stress or managing interruptions.

If things are not on track do more problem solving and re-direct the focus to get renewed commitments to meet the expectations.

Knowing the person and the situation they must deal with will allow you to be more sensitive to their needs and encourage them rather than criticize. Working remotely in the time of a crisis causes more stress and anxiety than working remotely when things are normal. Be patient and supportive and realize that things will revert to usual and people will appreciate the way you helped them manage the situation.

Responding from Strength Rather Than Fear in a Crisis Situation

Mar 24, 2020 Comments

We are currently experiencing the coronavirus around the planet and it is having a huge impact on our way of life. Many people reacted from fear while others took responsible action. Of course, it is normal to be highly concerned and act with caution.

How people have been responding reminded me of the levels of growth of a human being that I talked about in recent articles and videos.

Many people started stock piling food and essentials like toilet paper and for days there were line ups in stores resulting in empty shelves.

This type of reaction is responding from the self-protection or conformist levels. Fear and blindly following others predominates at these levels. Yet I saw interviews with people in the food supply industry who said there is no need for such concern as the supply chain is strong and food will not be an issue.

At the same time, I noticed the new series on Netflix called Pandemic and was gripped by the information and how well it was presented about past pandemics and the next threat, which is COVID-19 and happening now.

I learned that the Spanish flu of 1918-1920 took 50 million lives after 500 million people contracted it. More people died from this flu than from World Wars I and II combined.

Rather than responding with fear this is an opportunity to function at a higher level, the responsible level. At this higher level we act using all our capacities in the dimensions of life. This means we think clearly about what to do based on the right information. We act with compassion and caring for others. We stay healthy by taking the recommended precautions and boosting our immune system, so should we get ill we are able to shake it quickly.

I am reading more now about the responsible actions governments and health professionals are taking to limit the spread of the virus and find a cure or drug to impede the symptoms that cause death in those most affected.

Even though the measures taken by governments are drastic such as closing all all shopping centers and restaurants for perhaps months, I see few people criticizing these actions. Usually there is an abundance of criticism for any decisions made by politicians, so this may be a sign that people are pulling together and responding positively and responsibly to the crisis.

Moving forward we need to learn from this crisis and look at our own reactions and think about how we can function at the higher responsible level and encourage others to do so. This will lead to greater collaboration throughout the world to prevent these types of situations from occurring in the first place or at least being better prepared to contain these types of outbreaks.

Watching the great documentary series Pandemic illustrates those who are taking such actions and the compassion and dedication they are putting first and foremost.

Training Employees is Essential for Good Performance Especially in a Crisis Situation

Mar 17, 2020 Comments

As I am writing this the world is experiencing an unprecedented crisis with the coronavirus spreading fear, illness and economic devastation throughout the world. Everyone is scrambling to deal with the situation the best way they can.

Someone sent me a video from the World Health Organization showing how to wash your hands. If they would have sent me this before the virus struck, I would not pay any attention. But with a threat to health getting worse everyday I clicked the play button and was astonished at how little I knew about how to wash hands properly.

This made me think about how important training is. Of course, in a crisis you don’t always have time for training, so that should come before. Think of firefighters. They don’t have time for training when the fire starts, so training must happen when they are waiting for a fire to erupt.

But training must be done well for it to be effective in any situation. The seven steps to effective training is a way to ensure that training will produce the desired outcome. I have written an article and made a video on the seven steps so check that out.

I even created a planning worksheet based on the seven steps that can be downloaded from my website or from Eloquens.Watch the video and start washing your hands properly for better health and hygiene for everyone.

The Key to Staying Engaged and Motivated at Work

Mar 10, 2020 Comments

The key to staying engaged and motivated with you work is simple. Do what you love and are good at and keep the work challenging and interesting.

As human beings we all share one thing in common. The need and desire to be constantly satisfied and fulfilled. Whenever we become dissatisfied with what is going on, we seek something else to fill that need.

In life that can translate into self-destructive behaviour and addictions when people become driven to fill a void or emptiness in themselves. True satisfaction must be achieved through a balance between inner fulfillment and outer satisfaction.

Outer satisfaction can be in great part achieved through careers that are matched with skills and job interests. The responsibility for attaining this fall both on the employee and the leader and both must be achieved the self-knowledge and understanding others.

Many people study for careers and achieve degrees in areas that do not fully suit them. It is very common for young people to follow an educational path because the career prospects are bright. But numerous soon discover that the reality is not what they find fulfilling and some but not all are able to shift into different vocations that better suit them.

Leaders and managers must hire people that not only have the skills for the job but also the personality traits and job interests that are a good match. This can be very challenging and requires prudence, technique and tools.

When the right person is in the job the key is to give them challenging work that keeps them interested and growing. This allows the leader to delegate new responsibilities so they can free themselves to work on new and bigger projects.

So, the recipe is simple