How to Support Your Team While Working Remotely
Supporting your team now, perhaps more than ever, is the most important thing you can be doing as a leader in your organization. These are uncertain times, and team members are likely feeling nervous and anxious about the future of many things: their jobs, the economy, the health of their friends and family, and their communities.
In this blog, I’ll share how leadership at Strategic Community Partners is supporting the team while working remotely, and other tips and tools you can implement now to support members of your organization, no matter the size.
What Working Remote Looks Like at SCP
In the fall of 2019, SCP implemented two tools that really elevated our ability to work across teams, collaborate with consultants in our other two locations (D.C. and St. Louis) and work seamlessly with vendors. These two tools were Slack and Asana.
Fast forward to today and these tools are really helping us stay connected and organized as our entire team, and many of our vendors and partners, work remotely.
Tools
Slack - an informal communication tool you can use across teams.
Slack has made a huge difference in remote communication because it allows our team to connect quickly via direct message and get an almost immediate response. This is a nice replacement for sending emails, or, if it’s quick, not having to make a phone call. It’s a useful way to share articles, pictures, and jokes in an informal space without cluttering your email inbox!
Slack has free and paid options that are easy to integrate into any team. You can also integrate other useful apps into Slack, like easy polling tools, Zoom, Google Calendar and Drive, or my favorite, Giphys! Similar tools include Microsoft Teams, Gmail Hangouts Chat, Discord, and more.
Asana - a tool for helping teams organize, track, and manage their work.
I’ve personally worked with a few project management tools, and prefer Asana over others because it’s easy to use, visually appealing and user friendly. We find Asana to be an effective way to track individual tasks, keep meetings on track, and organize management and vendor needs. I can use it internally for a meeting but it's easy functionality also allows me to pull it up in a client meeting if needed. Our team currently uses the free option but there is also a paid version with additional features and tools. Like any workplace software, there are similar options, including Trello or Monday.com.
Tips for Supporting Remote Teams
Move all meetings to video calls. Unless it’s a quick question, it should be done face-to-face via video.
We use either Google Hangouts (free with your Gmail account) or Zoom (which also offers free options). When working remotely, it’s important to see your team members’ face’s when you’re communicating with them. Where phone calls can feel impersonal and be filled with interruptions, video calls allow you to read your teams’ reactions and know when it’s appropriate to speak. Plus, it can help add some much-needed variety to our daily personal interaction as we all quarantine and practice social distancing.
Schedule non-working times for the team to come together.
We previously did bi-weekly team stand-up* meetings, but have transitioned to weekly sessions on Monday mornings in order to touch base with everyone and kick off our week. Each week I send out a slightly different agenda, but always include the following:
What are you working on this week?
How can the team support you personally and professionally?
Throw in a fun question like what movie or show you last watched, or what restaurant you miss going to?
We’ve also scheduled “Happy Hour & Hot Seats” where team members grab their beverage of choice (alcoholic or non-alcoholic) and we put one team member into the hot seat for 15 minutes. The rest of the team can ask any question they want and the person in the hot seat only gets one pass. 🔥🔥
Continue to celebrate milestones like birthdays, anniversaries, births, etc. 🎂
Although we can’t be together in person, it’s extremely important to continue to celebrate team member milestones. For example, for a birthday, we sent a team member a virtual card and had treats delivered to her house from a local bakery. We also made sure to schedule a quick, all-team virtual hangout on the day before her birthday to celebrate as a team.
Make sure everyone has boundaries for working hours
Even though people are working, they’re doing it from home, likely with other people present (kids, family members, partners, or roommates). If you have team members with young children at home, you will have to be accommodating to their need for a flexible daytime schedule. Perhaps they work earlier or later hours while the child is sleeping or napping. They may have to jump off a call if their child is crying. This situation is difficult for everyone, so showing compassion and empathy will go a long way.
Keep your weekly or bi-weekly check-in schedule 📅
If you’re used to checking in regularly with your team, keep doing it! And make sure you’re checking in on their mental and physical health. Good questions to ask:
How are you really doing?
How are your family and friends doing?
Have you been able to get outside for some exercise at all?
Do you have everything you need at home?
Are you doing anything fun to keep you busy and occupied?
What are you struggling with?
And one of my favorites: What is COVID forcing you to do that you want to continue to do beyond COVID?
Support your team in taking advantage of any extra time.
At SCP we realize that work has slowed down a little bit, with some projects being paused or canceled, we wanted to give the team space to use that time to their advantage. So we provided team members with a WFH reflection guide that allowed them to do a mini-personal retro on Q1 2020 and other past projects. We asked them to journal about what could be done differently or better next time, how can they innovate in their work and how can they use some of this time to focus on professional development?
There are a ton of free professional development resources online ranging from LinkedIn Learning (one month free!), to free Coursera classes and free Non-profit Ready courses.
Interested in creating your own WFH Guide and Reflection? Download your own copy here!
Lastly, keep in mind that you and your team are human, you will have good days and bad days and the ups and downs will continue throughout the remainder of this crisis. While the business and day-to-day work needs to continue in order for the organization to thrive after COVID is over, don’t forget to check in with your team, practice empathy, and compassion, this will go a long way.
If you are interested in learning more about staying productive and connected while working remotely, make sure to check out our Working Remote: Surviving and Thriving webinar on Wednesday, May 20!
Have feedback on this blog? Or want to share some ideas of what you’ve been doing to support your team during COVID-19 or how you’ve been supported? Email me at celena.mancina@strategiccommunitypartners.org.
Celena Mancina
Managing Director, Business Development & Operations