Leader working from home!

Working from home is daunting enough, but when you have a team remotely you feel like you are carrying a few more buckets of stress.

11pm when your head is just about to hit that pillow. Are my team being productive? Has James really got the grasp of what I asked him? The deadline is Friday! Will my team pull it together?

Unfortunately, there is no ‘Silver Bullet’ to motivating a team remotely. If there was you wouldn’t be reading this and you would already be doing it.

The reality is that your team are not as motivated or productive as they were in the office. They will be distracted by family, the dog and the odd amazon delivery. There are certain things we have to accept and we have to accept it is tough working from home.

One thing to understand is that we are social animals and we need to interact. We need to hear a voice or see a face. Here are a few things to help you along the way:

Communication

Make your voice call or zoom call regularly. Depending on the size of your team will depend how regular your calls will be. If you make weekly team calls, do not limit this as your communication. Your whole team will want and need one to one time. If you are not speaking to your teams weekly then you need to find a method where there is interaction.

Their motivation!

Understand that one employee’s goals are different to other employee’s goals. Do they have a family, young children, pets, house renovation. We all have different drives and key motivators. Financial motivators, family motivators, life motivators. This is your primary job. What do they want? Once you understand and really get to know your team you then have engagement. Once you have engagement, your loyalty, energy and motivation increases.

Step into my shoes

Working from home limits their reach, network and accessibility to quick resolutions. They can’t just drift across the office to get a quick answer from you or another manager. They cant knock on doors or drop a piece of paper on your desk for you to sign. Relying on you to get something completed will only drift into their family/personal time and lower engagement. Change your mindset and change the angle of your leadership. Make their calls, emails and requests top of your list. The smallest things to you are a large part of their job

If you need any help dealing with these situations and need some specific guidance, please contact me through the website, or email bennormanhr@gmail.com or give me a call