Success is your duty even during the quarantine.
Get your team still moving because success is your duty even during the quarantine. The COVID-19 virus has disrupted and rearranged the workplace with breathtaking speed. Organizations across many sectors had to ask their employees to start working from home. It is challenging as the company still needs to be moving forward with all the obstacles. Also, it is challenging as the team is losing face-to-face interaction. The expected results, real-time quality checks are also disturbed because of quarantine.
Here are 8 ways to manage your team while social distancing and still keep going.
01. Rearrange expectations
You will need to reset the expectations of how work gets done. Focus on results and offer more flexibility. Allow team members to accomplish their work on their own terms aligning with the guidelines. Make sure you have briefed them on the objectives before commencing.
02. Stay in touch
Research says that shorter communication cycle times are more effective. So, have shorter communication cycles. Use instant messaging to stay in touch. Have a meeting at the beginning of the day (A regular stand-up meeting) and make sure all are present and few quick meetings during the day and the last meeting at the end of the day. Have a good, clear communication plan.
03. Micro-learning sessions
Continue learning as micro-learning. Focus on sharing short lessons. Rotate the delivery of these lessons among each team member. Allow them to find their own topic.
04. Shared leadership model
Have a shared leadership model to create the second layer of mutual support and guards against emotional isolation. Ask buddies to check each other daily.
05. Pay attention to your members
Some team members might need additional support. Pay close attention to patterns in the tone of written communication, physical gestures as it is harder to read the emotional cues of people when we’re not in the same room.
06. Build confidence and hope
Leaders need to demonstrate hopefulness and build confidence about the future to make sure team members find meaning and purpose in work. Do not forget to use a little bit of humour as a relief value. Remember! confidence always encourages creativity, innovation and sparks innovation.
07. Update even if there’s no update.
Uncertainty fuels anxiety. Communicate regularly even if you do not have new information to share. Maintaining transparency through a crisis ultimate generates good faith, empathy and genuine concern for your team.
08. Be transparent
Keep everything crystal clear to your team. Get them engaged with every new plan. Let them also be a part of the organization. Sometimes team members might have many interesting ideas/solutions. More than that, transparency will make relationships much stronger.
Even how critical is the situation, the team needs to function in the same spirit. Be creative and adjust to new conditions. Safe to learn, safe to contribute and safely challenge the status quo.