Staying on Track & Leading Through Covid-19

On the surface working from home sounds pretty good. Not so much when it’s all day, every day.

Leading your team through COVID is a real challenge and requires the leader to demonstrate genuine compassion and ability to communicate.

Here are some simple tips from the Whiteark team that might help…..

How to turn Ground Hog Day into a normal(ish) day

On the surface working from home sounds pretty good. Not so much when it’s all day, every day. There’s no water cooler relief, no Friday lunches, no direct contact. This can take its toll. Fortunately, there are plenty of ways alleviate WFH fatigue. Here are my top picks. Not surprisingly – they’re all centred on communication.

Keep your team on track

Set priorities and expectations of roles and keep your team accountable. A robust performance appraisal process with measurable KPI’s will help – bear in mind these may need to be adjusted. Accountability keeps the momentum going and ensures your team feels purpose and doesn’t drift off into a WFH abyss.

Make yourself available

Frequent one-on-ones are extremely important. This helps your team feel valued and ensures they know that you know how hard they are working. It gives them a chance to gain your confidence and have a meaningful conversation that can’t be achieved via Slack, email or in a group meeting. Connections like this are so important when we’re operating in a vacuum.

Think carefully about team catch-ups

It’s a fine line balancing the need for open communication vs too much of it. What used to be an informal convo within your team’s pod, is now usually a formalised online catch up. This can cause meeting fatigue and get in the way of productivity. Try to think strategically about meetings. Could one meeting be a 15 minute extension of another? Could your weekly 1.5 hour WIP change to fortnightly with 15 minute morning stand-ups as a substitute?

What does your team need to know?

Right now, people are super sensitive about their job security, so it is important to create a sense of inclusiveness and transparency. As a business owner or executive manager you’re privy to regular business updates. It’s important any nonsensitive business movement is also shared with your teams. Whether they agree with the updates or not, it makes them feel connected to the business.

Stay true to your values and culture

Core values inform and reinforce your company’s culture, strategic direction, recruitment processes and how you interact with your customers and clients. In times of uncertainty it’s very important to identify and reinforce these values to your staff. This provides an anchor to work from and demonstrates the business is on track, strong and stable.

Culture club

For employees to successfully adapt to this new style of working, they need to feel valued within their role. This equals more than a regular check in. It’s also about the broader team culture. You want this to be supportive, empathetic, inclusive, collaborative, proactive and encouraging initiative. Use team forums to highlight employees who have done a great job. Try to give everyone an opportunity to shine. Spread the praise. Don’t forget about the wall flowers.

Be authentic, not perfect

While you’re expected to play a strong leadership role, you also need to empathise with your teams’ challenges. This means you might need to relax a little and expose some of your own vulnerabilities. When running your one-on-ones think about what it means to really listen and care. Answer questions and provide reassurance on work and/or personal issues.

Get your team smiling

This is so important. There are plenty of ways to crack a grin – team quizzes, virtual drinks, step challenges, exercise time-outs, cooking challenges – ask the team what works for them. Try different formats or a mix. Just make sure you have regular time booked each week, where the conversation has nothing to do with work. It’s about relaxing and connecting as a team.

The buck stops with you

As you can see there are many small ways you can make a big difference to your team’s experience while working from home. Not only do these practices help them perform as happy, high functioning, individuals, it will also create a strong, united group – and that’s exactly what you need to do your job.