What was previously seen as a casual work-night-out is now considered a health hazard, given that a manager can find a place for the team to hang out in a group. Even in-office group activities and team-building initiatives have been banned, and it all happened so quickly, many people still have not entirely adjusted.
The COVID-19 pandemic has not only made it challenging for employees to adjust, as they get used to life working remotely and their homes are now also their workspaces, but it is also a new challenge for business owners and managers as they learn to manage their teams with little to no physical contact with them. The virtual working environment can seem fun and relaxed in the beginning, however as time goes on and the isolation sets in, working in and managing a remote group can be a challenging task.
Here are a few things which will help team-leads and business owners adjust to the new virtual setup and keep them on track to being the person who gets their team to where it needs to go.
With things such as physical arrival and departure time stamps, card swipes, and attendance software out of employment, the evaluation of employee performance has become a bit more challenging without the ability to check how many hours a person is putting in. There are digital solutions that can be used to check how long a person was logged in, but when managing a large team, how many screens can one manager monitor at the same time?
The mechanism of performance evaluation needs to evolve, managers need to focus on output and become more result-oriented rather than stressing on making sure employees are putting in the hours.
This method has 3 benefits;
Remote working may seem like a more relaxed way to go about work, but with the right technology, it could be a blessing in disguise for managers. There are a number of team collaboration tools that allow team-leads to monitor live progress on work, giving them a much better view of how much work is being done as compared to simply asking an employee how a task is progressing. Through digital solutions, employers can easily have employees log how much work they have done each day. This is far more effective not only to measure one employee's progress but also to keep the rest of the team updated on work that is being done by other members. It becomes much more difficult for any one person to hide procrastination when everyone's progress is publicly visible.
Just because the team is no longer in physical contact that doesn't mean communication has to be through only emails. Employ voice calls, video chats, group video meetings, and one-on-one phone calls to keep the humanly touch alive and keep everyone still connected at a physical level even if it's through communication.
Staying in touch is not only great for getting tasks done correctly and quickly but it also helps keep motivation up. Isolation leads to depression which hurts work quality, good communication helps keep anxiety at bay.