12th May 2020
The new rules for remote working during Covid-19
Remote working in the world of Covid-19 can be pretty chaotic! Many of us are crammed inside with children, partners, housemates and pets whilst trying to continue to work as usual. In these exceptional and bizarre circumstances, the world of remote working has to adapt accordingly.
Harvard Business School professors outline 10 new rules for managing large-scale, long-term remote work at a time when many employees are experiencing heightened levels of anxiety and stress not only from the Covid-19 crisis but also by the chaos in their homes.
From the Article:
Communicate clearly and be decisive
Business leaders have already had to make difficult decisions, such as closing offices or eliminating travel, but now they should express in black-and-white terms how employees’ work priorities should change as a result of these business disruptions.
If certain non-essential tasks are too difficult to pull off from home, take them off the table or at least put them on a back burner for now, and let workers know which projects should be prioritized, says HBS Senior Lecturer Julia Austin, who provides leadership coaching to companies.
“While now is a time to foster trust and delegate, you don’t want people debating about whether they should or shouldn’t do a major project. All that time questioning what to do will impact productivity,” Austin says. “Managers should make the call on high-level priorities, so employees can focus on their best work.”
At a time when many business leaders can’t gather their staffs in the same room, they need to “show up” on videoconference or in email to update workers regularly about how their companies are pivoting to weather this crisis and are protecting employees worried about their jobs, says HBS professor Tsedal Neeley, the Naylor Fitzhugh Professor of Business Administration, who has researched how to fix broken global teams.
“They may not be able to completely reassure workers about what will happen tomorrow, but they can provide a glimpse of the big picture from their perspective,” says Neeley, who is writing a case about a leader of a US company whose entire China operation was shut down and has seen no revenue, with thousands of employees home, since November.
You can read the full article online: The New Rules For Remote Work: Pandemic Edition
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