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2021 HR Best Practices: What Business Needs Most from HR This Year

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In January 2021, Tiger Recruitment hosted a webinar for HR professionals looking for guidance on 2021 HR best practices. Tiger’s Managing Director, Rebecca Siciliano, was joined by four expert speakers:

  • Mark Stelzner from IA
  • Robert Hicks from Reward Gateway
  • Marcus Thornley from Play Consulting
  • Saskia Donald, an HR professional with over 20 years experience

Together, they shared some critical insights to help human resources specialists in 2021. Over the course of the hour, the expert panel covered everything from rewards and benefits, to building remote business cultures.

Below, we highlight their 2021 HR best practices…

Take Stock

As a first priority, HR should take stock of each individuals’ circumstances. Whether through surveys or other data collection tools, the aim is to learn what the team is experiencing. Suppose a business expects to someday return to the office. In that case, HR should find out how this might work for individual workers’ changed circumstances. For example, would they prefer to come into the office every day or on an ad-hoc basis?

It’s likely the office won’t play the same role it once did for many businesses. So it’s a good idea for HR to broach this topic with leaders and begin to work out where the office will fit in future business plans.

Go Back to Basics

Start by looking at three key elements: communication, recognition, and rewards. These basic culture elements likely evolved in response to the first lockdown in March 2020, and perhaps we haven’t examined them since.

If this is the case, analyze what is and isn’t working. Use snap polls/surveys of employees and conversations with management, for example. Then develop a solution that better fits the way the business is planning to operate, post-pandemic. If the company is likely to move towards a hybrid-working model, ask:

  • How will communication work between employees working from home and those in the office?

If the business continues working remotely by default, ask:

  • How will employee recognition and rewards change to reflect that?

According to our experts, businesses should also get back to the basics of looking to their workers’ unique skills and expertise to unlock hidden talent. Mark asked the question: “Have we really created a space in this moment to ask everyone about the skills that they have?” Perhaps it’s identifying someone who has fantastic sales skills and can present a seminar on creating leads, for example. Or maybe it is an individual with great project management who can organize a task force to tackle an internal issue. In either case, HR can facilitate these sessions to help management teams better manage the challenges they’re facing.

Be Honest When Dealing with Uncertainty

In 2020, HR was relied upon to know the answers to a number of unprecedented questions, even when they may have been uncertain themselves. In looking at 2021 HR best practices, however, the experts believe HR should own their uncertainty! During the webinar, Robert said that he believes that “leaders [who] embrace [vulnerability] by saying ‘I don’t know, I’ll get back to you,’ [are] so empowering.” This transparency will contribute to a positive learning environment (as HR can work with the team to find the answer together). It will also better alleviate feelings of unease or doubt from employees.

Digital Platforms are Key to Remotely Building Business Cultures

While an effective digital platform is essential to rebuilding a remote business culture, HR needs to ensure it is inclusive, non-hierarchical, and places workers front and center. This is important as employees need to feel invested in the technology to truly harness its potential as a culture tool.

By taking the culture of the business online, an opportunity to rebuild in a much more inclusive way presents itself. For example, taking away the office and using an online platform will mean everyone has an equal opportunity to contact and be visible to managers and their teams.

HR tech is key to solving many challenges moving forward, but, the data needs to be interpreted through a human lens, and issues of accessibility also should be taken into account.

HR Needs to Facilitate Communication While Working Remotely

Internal communication must be consistent, timely, and easily accessible. If HR is unsure whether their current methods are effective, liaise with staff directly for feedback.

While video meeting software has become absolutely integral to business operations as we work remotely, as Marcus put it: “[It] isn’t the only way to communicate.” While video meetings are largely scheduled, they don’t allow much scope or flexibility for those working more ad-hoc hours. Instead, consider adopting methods of unscheduled or asynchronous communication that will work for the business. This will allow employees to continue ‘water cooler’ style conversations with colleagues.

Benefits in a Post-flexible Working Era

Many of us see flexible work as an expectation rather than a benefit, so businesses should look to other options when attracting and retaining talent. According to the experts, the most popular benefits in 2021 will center around wellbeing, learning and development, and remote working. Offering a competitive benefits package is essential to attracting top talent, as candidates may be hesitant to leave their current role if they’re concerned about job security or loyal to their current employer.

The Biggest of 2021 HR Best Practices: Look After Our Wellbeing

In our webinar, Saskia explained: “HR must put on their own life mask before helping others.” This is the perfect encapsulation of the feeling of extreme stress HR professionals have faced over the past 12 months as they’ve helped their teams through perplexing times. As 2021 is likely to be another challenging year, they may need time to rest and recover. If you’re working in HR, check on your team members and give one another space to share anxieties and decompress. If the business doesn’t provide HR these opportunities, they can’t help those around them – and may ultimately suffer from burnout.

The resilience of exceptional HR professionals will play a key role in helping businesses in 2021. From tailoring employee benefits to supporting on with strategic, people-led decisions, one thing’s for sure…

Human resources professionals have never been more crucial to business success.

 

Photo by VivilWeb

Futurecasting: 7 World of Work Trends We’ll See in 2021

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Futurecasting is sometimes akin to looking into the sky and trying to connect the stars. As we look ahead to the future this time, though, we know the direction we’re going. We know where the prominent work trends are taking us.

The pressures and complexities of 2020 and the pandemic forced an awakening. The innovation developed, creativity demonstrated, and momentum generated since that global reckoning has been so strong, there’s no turning around now; we’ll never go back to the way it was. So the tools and strategies we’ve leaned on throughout the pandemic will continue to redefine how we work in 2021.

With that in mind, here are seven key work trends that will continue to make their mark this coming year…

1. Remote Working

As an option, a necessity, a perk, and an official policy, remote working is here to stay. It’s a classic example of “if you build it, they will come.” And the many employees (and their managers) who have now experienced the ability to function remotely and now know the advantages remote work brings won’t want to go back.

As companies scale back on real estate spends (sorry realtors), remote working is a way to maintain a large workforce on a tighter budget. So we’ll see countless organizations following the path of big tech firms who have pledged to keep their employees remote for the time being — if, of course, they can accomplish the job and responsibilities without the need for a shared physical workspace. Once again, big tech is leading the way and disrupting the status quo. Only this time, it’s not transformative leadership creating the change; it’s the technology itself.

2. New Hires, New Experiences

For new hires (and particularly for Generation Z), that traditional rite of passage of joining a workplace and learning a whole new set of behavioral and social norms isn’t going to be as prevalent. This wholly digital generation has already changed the way we experience technology. Now, they’ll help us usher in a whole new way to enter the workplace. Soon, we’ll come to know this new wave of hires as the “remote generation” (or “hybrid generation”).

The brand-new job experience will not have the same impact as it did past generations. We don’t yet know how younger hires will feel about the value of that experience or workplace culture. But we will — and soon. The difference here: The 2021 work culture will be digital in nature. So the experience will not be as sharp a contrast as going from the classroom to the world of work.

3. Video Conferencing

Video conferencing has become the de facto way we meet. It has become so ubiquitous in the workplace that “to Zoom” is now a verb.

Zoom may have been the frontrunner. But there are plenty of existing competitors and new visual collaboration platforms that will help how we work together evolve. After all, this is a very hot aspect of HR technology and will undoubtedly continue to be one of the most dominant work trends.  So I predict increasing capabilities to communicate just as effectively over mobile as we once did face-to-face. I also see better ways to archive and transcribe our video-based conversations and more ways to extend the work done via videoconference to teams and stakeholders.

4. Upskilling

In 2021, we will see a big shift from hiring being the primary driver of increasing an organization’s capabilities to upskilling existing talent. Organizations that had to tighten their hiring budgets after sustained buffeting from 2020 and the pandemic will shift resources into training and development. Those that did just fine despite economic turbulence — in industries that actually grew during 2020 — will be adding a robust reskilling and upskilling program to their HR strategy.

The bottom line for everyone is that institutional knowledge is critical for maintaining continuity and weathering a crisis. Upskilling existing employees will become known as a smart way to hold onto that intelligence while evolving skills to meet new challenges. Upskilling will become a business imperative.

5. Mental Health

Without question, our mental health has become an enormous issue. A recent report by Monster revealed a whopping 69% of employees working from home experience severe burnout. It’s not that working from home is particularly hard on everyone by itself. But the rush to remote without an underlying culture and infrastructure — and without an end-game being defined — has caused some stress.

Because one of the key triggers of burnout is mistreatment by supervisors and managers, we’re learning about the importance of setting boundaries and doing frequent check-ins. Many of us are also making sure our people have access to the mental health benefits they need. To help us continue this critical work trend, we’ll soon see even more apps that help with emotional and mental well-being (such as a meditation app and a mindfulness training tool). And we’ll see more forward-thinking companies providing these practical and widely-available tools as part of their overall well-being programs.

6. Inclusive Cultures

Diversity is critical to every aspect of the workplace — and organizations need to do better. So we’ll see a lot more leaders focusing on how to improve a sense of belonging in their organizations, as well as some authentic soul-searching as we dive into legacies such as systemic racism.

Our timing couldn’t be better. Currently, 70% of job seekers in a survey by the Manifest say they consider a company’s commitment to diversity when evaluating them as a prospective employer. But diversity in terms of hiring and promotions is only one part of the equation. Companies must pay attention to their work cultures, gauge how truly inclusive they are now, and then work to close the gap between what is and what should be. This is perhaps the mother of all work trends and will play a critical role next year. Because in 2021, organizations are not going to be able to get away with a performative statement or symbolic gestures. If you truly believe in equality — if you genuinely believe black lives matter, for example — you’re going to have to show it.

7. Empathetic People Management

Let me add a few words to the phrase above: “empathetic people management… for the right reasons.”

The pre-pandemic talent crunch triggered many reflective moments around how to better conduct HR and talent management. The goal for many companies is to be perceived as a better employer brand and to successfully engage and retain your people. That’s all well and good. But we’re not in a talent crunch right now.

Yet between February and October 2020, some 2.2 million women in the U.S. left their jobs. Overwhelmed, undersupported, and stressed out, many women — particularly working mothers — reached a tipping point and gave up. That’s an incredible talent drain. When they come back to work, they’re going to look for companies that set up the structures that truly support their people through empathetic people management for all the right reasons.

Looking Ahead to 2021

2020’s silver lining is that we’d been stubbornly dancing around what was truly important in the workplace — and to the workforce. We were forced to reckon with real-time discoveries in an authentic way. So we now know exactly what lies between us and where we want to go. We’ll bring that wisdom, and these work trends, to 2021.

This welcome knowledge, together with knowing we have better tools and a clearer vision of what must come next than we’ve ever had before, brings me to my final bit of futurecasting…

2021 will be the year HR once again finds its soul. 

In 2021 and beyond, we will take better care of our people — and each other.

 

Photo by Genitchka

Are Your Employees OK? Creating Sustainable COVID-19 Remote Work Policies

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Are your remote work policies sustainable? Is your company culture still viable? Are your employees really ok?

Over the past few months, many experts (hundreds!) have written articles about COVID-19 workplace policies—especially the work-from-home versus onsite work dilemma we face now and in the future. I should know. I’ve written a couple myself! Yet, in all of the debates about the benefits and detriments of working from home versus in the office, I question whether there has been enough focus on the long-term effects on staff. I also wonder about the long-term impact on company culture.

New Thinking for A New Time

So how, in this chaotic response to the coronavirus pandemic of moving employees offsite—ensuring they are connected properly to work from home—do we ensure the side effects of remote work don’t cause long-term damage to your staff and your long-term strategic plans?

Here are some thoughts on what to look out for:

1. Culture

Culture (defining, creating, sustaining) has been one of the top business issues for the last 20 years. Tech companies spent big bucks trying to positively influence their corporate cultures (ping pong tables, beer taps, etc.). They tried to build a culture that would help entice employees’ top echelon when talent was tight. Today, though, COVID-19 is the immediate buzz kill for cultures across the spectrum. All the money and time built into an organization’s culture now has limited value.

When I started out of college at a Tier-one consulting firm, I loved going to work. I also enjoyed the evenings as people I worked with would socialize after work. It was great. If COVID-19 had broken out then, a major reason I appreciated the firm would be gone (as it is for millions of people now). I’d be working in isolation and not interacting (or socializing) with my peers. I can’t predict that I would like the firm. In fact, A friend recently told me her daughter loved work at her company in Silicon Valley. COVID-19 hit, though, and she went remote. She quickly realized she hated the work, but she loved the company’s culture and people. Soon after this epiphany, she left to look for another job.

As a result of COVID-19, the existing culture of an organization may have become dismantled. Companies have to work differently if their employees are going to be working remotely. Today, to have any relevance, we must rethink and rework the employer brand and focus that drives high-end talent to a company.

2. Loyalty

The most powerful talent retention strategy is the loyalty or commitment your employees have to your organization or its mission.

How have you addressed your employee retention strategy in light of your remote working policy and COVID impacts? There are so many different surveys related to the top 10 reasons top employees stay with their employer. But there are consistent themes. The most obvious? “Salary and compensation” is never number one. In fact, the highest “salary” appeared in a recent review of top 10 lists was fourth!

The consistent reasons employees stayed included:

  • Culture
  • Liking the people they work with
  • Good bosses
  • Enjoying the challenge(s)
  • Learning new things

In many Top 10 lists, these reasons come before pay. Yet in a COVID-19 world (and potentially post-COVID-19 for companies that remain remote), most of those reasons either go away or become harder to make relevant. Culture is more difficult to develop; working with people becomes less pertinent when dealing with them exclusively over Zoom or MS Teams. Learning new things also becomes more difficult when you are not in the office. After all, you have less exposure to what’s going on throughout the company; it is harder to get on new exciting projects. Invariably, once those top three to five reasons become less applicable, their salary climbs closer to the top of the list. When that happens, pay is often – and sometimes easily – improved by job-hopping.

3. Mental Health

Working from home can be a dream come true—or a nightmare. It depends on who you are, what type of work you do, and your company. But let’s keep it on an individual level.

Let’s start with the personality of the employee, specifically extroverts versus introverts. The saying goes that extroverts gain their energy from being with people and introverts exhaust their energy from being with people. COVID-19 may seem to be a dream for introverts (and a corresponding nightmare for extroverts), but it goes deeper. Many studies (yes… science!) point to an innate human need for social connection. I am an introvert, but an “extrovert wannabe” (my life’s tag line). This is hard for me. Before COVID-19, I may have had a week of meetings and evenings filled with networking events. If I have more than two evening networking events, I can guarantee that I will be canceling anything over that amount. Now? I’m craving even one networking event!

Even as an introvert, I find that there is only so much TV I can watch before I feel my brain cells begin to disintegrate! And I am lucky; I am at home with a partner (though eight months into isolation, I would guess he may not be feeling as fortunate) so I get some social interaction. People who are isolated and are in their homes 24/7, however, can be at risk.

Think about it: what do they do to punish someone in prison? They put them in isolation.

Mental Health: Avoiding Isolation Prison

This may not be the best thing for some employees. And in the short-term, the situation isn’t going to get any better: Those company holiday parties and outings have all but disappeared. Have you thought about ways to help your employees feel more engaged?

Here are some ideas to implement today:

  • Reach out and check on them
  • Send small gifts or have an online game night
  • Do you offer an EAP (Employee Assistance Program) to your employees? If so, reacquaint yourself with its offerings (making your staff aware it exists could be more important now than ever).
  • Can you positively influence their off-hours time? (We bought our staff access to Master Class as a way to keep them mentally stimulated with things other than work.)

Working where you live eliminates that daily connection many of us took for granted. Yes, some of your employees may thrive within this new environment. But understand that many may not.

What are you doing for those individuals?

4. Physical Health Issues

Before the COVID-19 pandemic hit, people were able to work out (gym, outdoors, etc.) more frequently. Unfortunately, working out from home is not for everybody.

The term “couch potato” often brings up the image of those sitting in front of the TV on the weekend. For many, that image is now our reality – seven days a week. And we’re working longer hours (thus the excitement of companies seeming an increase in productivity) while sitting in front of the computer! Physical activity studies recommend walking 10,000 steps a day. Most of us are lucky if we get past 1,000! Less physical activity leads to more physical problems, which leads to more money spent on health care (on top of the obvious costs associated with COVID-19).

It may not seem to be a problem now. But long term, inactivity is bound to be an issue.

Your employees must take some time for their physical health each day. Something as simple as standing up at the top of the hour and stretching can help. Standing desks have also shown significant benefits. Whatever message you can convey to your employees to move around a little each day, step outside on their front porch or in their back yard. And if they have stairs at home—encourage them to walk up and down a few extra times during the workday.

Remote Work Policies: Prepare for the Future

Today, many companies are touting increased productivity due to remote work policies. But when something looks too good to be true, it often is.

Companies need to be looking at the long-term effects of remote working on their employees, their company culture, and their differentiators in the marketplace. After all, short-term gains (like increased productivity) don’t always turn into long-term strategies.

If people are working harder at home, has your company assessed its sustainability? Once life returns to normal (and it will), how many people will be willing to work the same hours while watching reruns of “Friends”? Most importantly, what issues will we need to anticipate, given the strain the pandemic has caused on your employees’ mental and physical health?

Create sustainable remote work policies now.

Better to look at ways to address the not-so-great aspects of working from home, and your COVId-19 induced remote work policies, now — pay now or pay later!

 

Photo: Mimi Thian

#WorkTrends: Culture That Counts Right Now

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Now more than ever, the culture of a company matters. From values to purpose to behaviors, culture is what crosses through every level of an organization and connects its people together. This week on #WorkTrends, Meghan M. Biro and Organizational Culture Strategist Josh Levine got into the power — and the importance — of work cultures today.

As companies have transitioned their workplaces to remote, grappling with new policies and tough decisions, it’s the leaders who have the power to transform and unify, said Josh. Leaders turn micro moves into macro shifts — and if they convey true intentions, mission, and expectations, employees will make the connection.

But it’s the managers who do much of the heavy lifting, Meghan noted — and Josh agreed, adding that it’s up to organizations to set their managers up for success. “Organizations need to empower managers to reward and recognize value-driven behaviors, so that people inside can understand values as more than words.”

Meghan and Josh concurred that within a great company culture lie tremendous meaning and opportunity — especially now. In these real (and unreal) times, an authentic culture can sustain an organization for the long haul — through this crisis, and to what comes next. And the bottom line has to be people: a culture’s true value should be helping other humans be better at their jobs, and better to each other. More than anything else, that’s what counts right now.

Listen to the full conversation and see our questions for the upcoming #WorkTrends Twitter Chat. And don’t forget to subscribe, so you don’t miss an episode. 

Twitter Chat Questions

Q1: Why are some organizations struggling with company culture? #WorkTrends
Q2: What strategies can improve company culture now? #WorkTrends
Q3: What can leaders do to help create better company cultures? #WorkTrends

Find Josh Levine on Linkedin and Twitter

Photo: Norbert Levajsics

How to Work Productively During COVID-19

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Working from home is a necessity for many of us right now. It’s a critical way to help flatten the curve, for one. It can also have its appeal even during this unprecedented, harrowing crisis that faces us all. But being productive at home even under the best of circumstances — without remote schooling, sick loved ones, relentlessly bad news, and economic turmoil — can be a challenge. 

Full disclosure: I have been working remotely since well before COVID-19; many of my colleagues do as well. We’re old pros at this (not really old, but you get the point). But even those who have been doing it for years know productivity is not just a robotic process. Sometimes we need to detach to refocus. Sometimes we need a better chair. So I collected some of the best practices for being productive and staying focused while you work at home. As we weather this pandemic — a sentence who among us ever thought we’d be writing — here are proven tips for boosting your productivity: 

1. Recognize these are not normal times.

The stress of great expectations can be crippling to our ability to focus right now. Anxiety is also a known productivity-crusher. My advice: acknowledge these are not ideal conditions to shift your operations to the home office / kitchen / kids’ room.  My colleague, Meghan, calls it the “new not normal.” We’re stressed and distracted and overburdened; we may be parenting and caregiving as we’re conference calling. Remembering that we’re all in this together, and there’s a great purpose to it all can be a powerful way to defuse that tension headache brewing as you try to conquer that memo.

2. Go with your flow.

Work with your natural flow of mental, physical, and emotional energy that happens in the course of a day. Everyone’s different. The friction of pushing back against fatigue uses way too much energy, and that’s energy you should be conserving to sit back down. So the next time you feel tired and sleepy, don’t ignore it. Your brain chemistry is saying it’s time to take a break. Like any organism, it can only run high gear for a while. After that, the ratio between potassium and sodium gets out of balance and that’s when you start losing focus. 

3. Take better breaks.

It’s not just the act of taking a break that’s key to productivity; it’s also the kind of break we take. You’ve just been facing a screen for three hours and then you decided (wisely) to get up and give yourself ten minutes. Where do you head? LIkely, to another screen. Too many of us turn to our smartphones and check in on social media. But that’s no way to rest our brains. If you take a microbreak from your computer screen, make it a microbreak away from any screen. Go for a walk, stretch, or meditate: even meditating for a few minutes can be extremely effective. 

4. Smooth out the distractions.

A professor of Informatics at UC Irvine found that distractions aren’t just momentary little hiccups: they can seriously detract from your ability to concentrate. It can take an average of 25 minutes to regroup after a 30-second jump to check Twitter, for instance. Repeatedly checking inboxes and social media also breaks the all-important flow state of creativity that’s required to successfully complete a complex task. Even taking a few seconds to answer a text can derail your focus and lead to errors. Given the digital array we’re all working on now, it may be hard to ignore the constant flow of communications from your co-workers. But if you have a project you need to attend to, consider signing off — at least for half an hour. You’ll get farther with it, faster.

5. Take a longer break.

Many of us have a crowded household and several needs pulling at us from all directions. It can feel as if you’re moving from conference call to homework table to snack making to the next meeting. Break that seamless feeling by going for longer breaks that take you entirely out of the routine. As well as microbreaks, make sure you get at least one macro break during your workday. A twenty-minute walk can increase the release of endorphins that naturally improve your mood and reduce stress levels. It’s also a great way to clear your head. 

6. Track your moods and energy levels.

Knowing how to pace yourself will come with time, but it’s worth it to monitor yourself over the course of a workweek. The goal is not just to work well over the duration, but also to avoid burnout — by not pushing yourself so hard you’re completely depleted. Take an average day (if there is one). Every hour, write down what you do, whether or not you were focused for the whole hour, your mood, and your energy level. Use a 1-10 scale for energy and mood — keep it simple. What interruptions happened, and how long did it take you to get back to working? When did you break to drink or eat? Then, repeat it the next day, and the next. You can also find a time tracker app, though the act of writing something down on paper has the added benefit of getting you off the screen. At the end of a few days or a week, gather the data. See what you’ve got.  

From those insights, see what small changes you can make to improve the low mood and low energy times. Might be more breakfast, meditation, a later lunch, a longer walk, more exercise, more water. And look at the high mood and high energy times and see if you can shift your schedule, so the toughest tasks are done at those times. Even minor adjustments can have tremendous results.

Finding our working rhythms in this time of crisis and anxieties isn’t necessarily the first thing that comes to mind. We may be more concerned with where we’re going to go, in a noisy apartment for the next meeting, or getting the Internet to go a little… faster. But what we learn now about our own work habits will last the rest of our careers. And you’ll always remember that during self-quarantine, you found out you’re really not a morning person — and you don’t need caffeine, or just the opposite. Taking care of yourself means taking care of your ability to get your work done, too. I wish you good luck and good workdays!

Photo credit: @visuals

Make Remote Work Feel Human

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The shift to remote work has created a watershed moment, albeit under unprecedented circumstances. What passes for normal right now for many involves WFH — working from home, while juggling pets, kids, bandwidth, technology, worries, and a constant blur of work and home. This is not what we meant by improving work/life integration for the future. Yet here we are.

But I’m seeing leaders step up to the plate in amazing ways. I’ve talked to CMOs, CEOs and executives who are facing the responsibility of remote leadership with incredible grace, compassion and ambition — to ace this new reality and bring out the best in their people. They’re providing emotional, logistical, educational and technical support, and factoring in the importance of employee experience. And given that we’re experiencing work in a virtual space, that means finding ways to brighten up the workday.

So let’s get real and bring some fun into the virtual workplace. Try these approaches to lighten up your remote meetings:

Practice Intentional Interruptions

The imposed monotony of video conferencing is starting to be a thing: we’re seeing tutorials now on challenges unique to remote working, such as how to combat Zoom fatigue. Building interruptions into remote meetings on purpose can provide a welcome reprieve and work as an ice-breaker. If you’re on an hour meeting, schedule a five-minute break so people can get up and stretch, get a snack (working at home is big on snacks), take a bathroom break, or just switch gears for a moment. Make it clear: this is a break.

Create Virtual Water Cooler Sessions

Launching into long video meetings does little to reduce the sense of social isolation that can come with remote working. We are social beings — we get energized from interactions — but digital interactions deliver a lot less than face to face. So create a water cooler session and make the talk spontaneous (leave work off the table). Some ideas gaining traction in the remote workplace now: brown bag virtual lunch hour; half-hour highlights jams to share something that happened in the week (again, not work-related); online game sessions; book clubs; kitchen table hangout rooms. These should be by choice, not mandate, or it will just feel like more work. And one hint: don’t try to bring people together with a remote happy hour. According to the Wall Street Journal, as the novelty of remote work wears off, it’s going to take more than scheduled virtual cocktails to keep us engaged.

Let Kids Crash the Meeting                                                             

Why is it more comforting to not have to banish our kids from the room when we’re on a work call? There’s nowhere for them to go. We’re on lockdown, schools are closed. Some 98,000 public schools and at least 34,000 private schools in the U.S., have switched to remote learning. That accounts for nearly 50.8 million public school students and 5.8 million private school students.  Balancing work and parenting is never easy. Now? It’s a whole new ballgame. But we’re all working together in the same location — and instead of pretending they don’t exist, it’s far better to embrace these times. So let the kids crash the meeting to say hello. It’s great for them to see other kids and see a bit of what their parents do. Think of it as a very informal “take your kids to work” day. It’s also great for us to see we’re all in this together. Consider a round-robin to say hi to each others’ kids. Then get your team back to focus on the work at hand.

Bring Your Pets to Work 

Instead of hiding the pets, show them. Pets can reduce stress levels and provide tactile connection we’re not getting during social distancing. And they remind us to see the humor in all of this. Witness Illinois meteorologist Jeff Lyons, who decided to make his cat Betty part of his daily broadcast on Channel 14. A district sales manager has been declaring his dog employee of the month for years now, with endlessly popular posts. Create a social campaign to share your pets — and if possible, bring them to the conference. We may as well give into a little playful subversion here: who hasn’t wished they could bring their dog to the next team meeting?

Invite a Goat

Another way to break up the monotony of seeing the same faces in the video call: invite a special guest to the meeting — in this case, a farm animal. A California animal sanctuary, Sweet Farm, was looking for a new way to drive revenue and stay true to their mission. They came up with the idea of Goat 2 Meeting. (Yes, it’s a pun.) For a fee, you can invite a goat — or a llama, sheep, turkey or cow — to make a cameo on a live video call. It’s a great way to break up the same-old-same-old and get your team smiling. 

If we can give our employees a way to reduce their stress and anxiety for a moment, we’re helping. And this is the time to get creative and give your remote work culture a boost. Consider creating team Instagram pages with weekly challenges. Set up video conference yoga and exercise classes. One team I know swears by IG live dance classes with the irrepressible Ryan Heffington. Offer learning labs and plenty of opportunities for training: we’re hungry for knowledge now — as we see on our #Worktrends podcasts every week. Do quick check-ins via chat and text. Connect teams with volunteer opportunities. 

There are endless ways to bring some fun — and meaning — into the remote workplace experience. And whatever we can do to ease the burden and make work easier, we owe it to our employees. When we’re through this and we’ve returned to whatever the new normal we’ll have, we’ll all remember how we solved the problem of isolation as we worked remotely, whether it involved a llama, a toddler, a terrier, or a dance party.

Get Your Office Ready For The ‘Agile Working’ Era

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As a concept, agile working is concerned with empowering employees and removing traditional constraints, providing staff with the freedom to work when, where and however they like. In today’s age of smartphones and tablets, video calling and cloud storage, it is also becoming increasingly popular.

Indeed, a 2015 study from Stanford University found that flexible workers were more productive, less likely to take sick days and produced a superior overall performance. Meanwhile, 83 percent of respondents to a recent survey conducted by Vodafone reported that adopting flexible working led to improvements in productivity and profit.

So how can you get your office ready for the ‘agile working’ era?

1. Make Your Office Layout Flexible

Agile working does not mean ‘remote working’, it means offering a choice. Many staff will still like the routine of going into a physical workplace, so office space planning is essential. Ideally, you should aim to provide different ‘types’ of space or zones. So, you may have one open plan area with large tables, wall boards and video conference facilities for collaboration, and another partitioned area for privacy featuring elements such as insulated walls to block out noise

2. Think About Your Technology

A successful agile working approach relies on effective use of technology. If you are going to have staff working from home or on the go, they must be able to access the things they need. This could mean providing company devices and will almost certainly mean giving them access to the company’s private network and/or cloud storage.

3. Leave Room For Future Expansion

When the US retailer Best Buy switched to a flexible working strategy at their headquarters, they experienced a 45 percent reduction in staff turnover, according to The Telegraph. Happy workers and low staff turnover offer stability, which is the perfect platform for expansion. Therefore, you should try to make sure your office interior design leaves room for growth and a greater number of staff in the years ahead.

4. Create a Virtual Office Environment

While remote workers are often very productive, there is a danger that they can become isolated from important workplace discussions, or suffer from a lack of collaboration. Company messaging systems can help, but a virtual office environment can also be created by utilizing video calling technology.

5. Pay Attention to Your Break Areas

One of the things agile working affords employees is greater control over how they use their time. However, this can sometimes mean staff are in the building for longer hours, so it is important that break areas are adequate. You do not necessarily have to adopt things like sleeping pods, but try to create communal areas of adequate size, ensuring they’re interesting and useful.

6. Try to Orchestrate Chance Encounters

According to the Harvard Business Review, creating chance encounters or unplanned ‘collisions’ between staff can improve performance, because this is where many of the best ideas come from. Try to design an office layout that encourages people to move around and stop to have spontaneous conversations.

7. Take Cyber Security Very Seriously

Finally, cyber security is one potential pitfall of allowing workplace flexibility, especially if staff use their own devices. Make use of passwords and encryption, and take care to ensure people can only access things they have the right level of authorization for. It can be difficult to monitor what files and apps staff download in their own time, so up-to-date virus software is also a must.

Photo Credit: Kulpercompany Flickr via Compfight cc

Remote Working: Easier With These Nine Tools

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Remote working can be beneficial for both employer and employee. One study found that remote employees are happier, more productive, and 50 percent less likely to quit. But while working from home eliminates distractions you might ordinarily find in the office, it can be harder to collaborate with your team, monitor your hours, and stay connected with your boss. Thanks to technology, though, there are a few online tools that can alleviate those issues, making your remote work easier and more efficient.

Work at High Speeds with the Right Internet

Before you can use any online tools, you need reliable, fast Internet. The amount of Internet speed you need depends on your daily tasks. You want to make sure you have enough bandwidth to handle your needs, especially if you are streaming music and webinars, sharing large files, or holding video conference calls.

Collaborate with Team Members Using Google Drive

Google Drive is one of the simplest ways to share and collaborate on documents, spreadsheets, and presentations in real time. You can see co-workers’ changes, add comments, and ensure your team has the most current draft without worrying about emailing new versions back and forth. You can also store photos, documents, videos, and recordings in your Drive so you can access them from any computer, tablet, or smartphone.

Chat with Co-workers at Any Time with HipChat

One of the biggest potential problems with working remotely is the lack of immediate face time with co-workers. When you’re working from home, you can’t walk over to a co-worker’s desk to ask a question. Luckily, services like HipChat make it easy for you and your co-workers to chat, send files and share screens. When an entire company is on HipChat, it’s as if everyone is working in the same building.

Make Scheduling Meetings Easier with Every Time Zone

It’s noon in California, but what time is it in Arkansas or Colorado? Scheduling meetings with people in multiple time zones can get complicated. By using a time zone converter, such as Every Time Zone, you instantly know what time it is around the world. You’ll save precious minutes each time you schedule a meeting and avoid the “I thought you meant noon my time” confusion.

Find a New Favorite Spot to Work with Workfrom

One of the great parts about working remotely is that you can choose where you work. While some people prefer the comfort of their home, others enjoy the creative boost that comes with new surroundings. If you like to change up your workspace, Workfrom is an essential tool that helps you discover cafes, shared working spaces, and other work-friendly locations near you.

Virtually Manage Projects with Trello

Project management is one of the keys to remote work success. You need to be able to see your team’s progress on different projects. Trello is a simple project management system that allows you to create project boards and lists to chart your progress, from the initial ideas stage to the completed virtual high-five. You can also add people to different lists and stages to streamline collaboration. Trello gives you an easy way to create goals, delegate tasks, and let your boss see what you’re working on and accomplishing.

Hold a Video Conference with Skype

Video conferences, as opposed to emails or chat rooms, make it easy for remote workers to connect with their bosses and team members face to face. Whether you hold video calls daily or monthly, Skype is an excellent option. It’s simple to use, well recognized, and reliable. Download the app on your computer, tablet, and smartphone so you can hold a call at any time.

Share Your Screen Using join.me

Sometimes the only way to troubleshoot or explain a solution is to share your screen. With join.me, you can hold webinars, invite up to 250 participants, and record your meetings. Additionally, join.me allows you to personalize your conferences and send invitations for collaboration, which helps establish a professional and efficient workflow.

Send Large Files with Dropbox

Every team needs a repository where they can share project files too large to send via email. Dropbox is a popular Cloud storage service that is intuitive, secure, and easy to use. Use Dropbox to back up important files, work on presentations with other teammates, and access your documents from any device.

By using online productivity tools and technology, you can successfully and efficiently work with your team members from any location. Get started by trying some of these tools to see which ones help you and your team!

Perfectionism At Work: Avoiding Burnout

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It’s not unusual for employees to be driven to succeed, especially in a company which is striving for success and prides itself on hiring highly motivated staff. But, according to new research, reaching for perfection isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.

While you might think that perfectionism is a personality trait that would be productive, you would be mistaken. Studies conducted by York St John University and the University of Bath have shown that perfectionism can be a destructive force.

Perfectionism Is A One-Way Ticket To Burnout

Extremely high personal standards and goals? Your own worst critic? If that sounds familiar, then perfectionism may be an issue. In the workplace, perfectionists tend to be those putting themselves under immense pressure to reach goals that others perceive to be close to unattainable. In doing so they may spend copious amounts of time working on a task and going into meticulous detail.

There’s no arguing that in the short term, perfectionism could achieve excellent results here and there. Unfortunately, in the long-term, it’s a very dangerous personality trait. Perfectionism is very closely linked to burnouts, which happens when stress levels hit the roof leading to fatigue and withdrawal.

Perfectionism And The Workplace

Employers have to take some responsibility for the perfectionism epidemic. Modern workplaces are often highly focused on performance outcomes and employee performance is closely monitored. Highly charged work environments are counter-productive. While they may be striving for better results, perfectionism and work stress produces poorer performance.

Dr Thomas Curran, who co-authored the research, said “We suggest its [perfectionism’s] effects can be managed and organisations must be clear that perfection is not a criteria of success. Instead, diligence, flexibility and perseverance are far better qualities.”

Don’t Burn Out, Take Time Out

Perfectionism may be part of a person’s make up, but it can be exacerbated by employers who are results driven and have high expectations of staff. Innovative companies, just like Google, can look at ways to achieve results by decreasing workplace stress.

1) Take Time Out – Asking employees to work overtime isn’t good for productivity or performance. The most productive employees are those that have time to take a break. Encourage staff to take their annual leave and recharge their batteries, and never keep them late in the office, and you’ll see an improvement in productivity.

2) Depressurize Work Environments – Look for alternative work environments to take away some of the stress. This can be as simple as changing office lighting, to bigger moves towards remote working and flexible working hours. Flexible working arrangements can boost workplace productivity by 71%, not a figure to be sniffed at.

3) Take Failures on the Chin – Instead of chasing results by micromanaging and reacting negatively to missed deadlines, encourage employees to take charge of their own work and use failures as an opportunity for improvement, not as an excuse for loading on more pressure. Use failures to your advantage and work on strategies to avoid them in the future.
Bearing these three points in mind could be the solution to mitigating the negative consequences of high pressure work spaces and perfectionism on the part of management and employees.

IMAGE: BIGSTOCK

How to Get The Most Out Of Your Remote Workers

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Remote working is on the rise. Virgin Media Business has predicted that 60% of employees will frequently work from home by 2022. Currently, 24% of employees in the US report working from home at least part of the time, while in the UK 13.9% of the workforce is made up of home workers. Businesses are recognising the importance of flexible work arrangements in helping employees achieve a better work-life balance, in potentially improving workplace productivity by 71%, as well as the ability to source staff from a wider talent pool and bring in the skills needed.

If your business has already caught on to the trend, or is at least thinking about getting some staff working from home, how can you make sure your remote workers are motivated and performing at their best?

Ditch Micromanaging

The number one mistake for managers is to try and watch what remote workers are doing all of the time. You should be able to trust your employees and they should respond to that trust. While it’s certainly important to continue face-to-face communication like you would in an office environment, you don’t need to be calling employees up every five minutes. Google Hangouts and Skype calls, or paid software such as Yammer, JoinMe and GoToMeeting, are great for calls when you do need them. Don’t be tempted to micromanage because it will most likely backfire.

Introduce Milestones

One of the biggest pitfalls is inviting employees to work remotely but not setting milestones for what work they should have achieved by a specific date in the future. Even the most productive employees who are getting on with their projects can stumble without set deadlines, and that could have a knock-on effect on other team members who have dependencies. You can simply create an online Google calendar with work milestones, colour coded by department or employee, or even make use of a project management software such as Teamwork or Pivotal Tracker to make this even clearer.

Don’t Skimp On Training

Just because employees aren’t location-based doesn’t mean that they shouldn’t get regular training. Keeping employees up to date and on the ball will make them feel valued and result in increased success for your business. There are plenty of opportunities for training online, from reading research papers, blog articles or watching tutorial videos like those available on Udemy. A good way to integrate this is to ask employees to regularly read a relevant blog during the last twenty minutes of their work day, or to send a video link to a new tutorial each week. Companies can also invest in grander online and even bespoke training courses for employees across the business.

Provide Remote Working Software

I’ve already mentioned providing software for the purposes of communication and project management, but to really get the most out of your remote workers it’s worth rolling out software for every aspect of the work day. Dropbox and Google Drive can be used to store and share work files, apps like Hubstaff can be used log work hours and take screenshots of work being done, and online software such as OneTouchTeam can keep track of staff absences and manage annual leave. Don’t be tempted to over complicate the software available to your remote workers but do make sure to have a well-organised system in place.

Getting the most out of your remote workers doesn’t need to be rocket science. Keep them in the loop, give them the tools they need to organise them and make sure they’re clear on what work needs to be achieved by when.

Photo Credit: Big Stock Images

#TChat Recap: How To Successfully Work From Anywhere

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How To Successfully Work From Anywhere

The harsh truth about work is that its no longer bounded by office space and organizational networks. Work can be done anywhere. Just ask any remote worker you know. As long as there is a power outlet and wifi around then it’s business as usual. Remote workers are a special bunch of professionals that I know all too well. But like everyone else, they come across daily challenges that force them to transcend or come apart. This week on #TChat, we were joined by Simon Salt, six-year workshifting veteran, photographer, writer, speaker and author of Out of Office. Simon’s unique professional experience in remote working taught our community about the ins and outs of this unique professional lifestyle that’s transcending the way we work, when we work, and where we work.

But like always, when something new and different comes along, it’s met with skepticism and usually doubt. In the World of Work, transparency is measured by what is known and what can be measured. Simon, knows this all too well that:

For a brief moment, stop and ask yourself, “How often do I say or hear the word ‘trust’ at work?” Hopefully, it doesn’t leave you feeling puzzled, but trust is what binds organizations and their employees together. It is one of the key focal points that makes remote working successful. Employees crave trust and smart leadership knows how to offer it to them. Trusting remote workers is built with a unique approach to tackling work. It has to be met with:

Neither trust, nor communication can survive without each other. They’re both destined to succeed or fail together. Just like how leaders and employees are destined to find success or failure together. Both sides need to be able to communicate with each other, but that only happens when communication is kept open from both sides. That means, leaders and employees need to be accessible to each other. Work is meant to challenge us, inspire us, and drive us. Sometimes, when work takes a turn for the worse it’s because there is no dialogue between leadership and employees. While both sides are responsible and should be held accountable for executing work at a high-level, remote working:

At the end of the day, meeting deadlines comes down to being able to execute. Completing work on a remote level is dependant on having a personal strategy to doing so, because we all work differently. Remote working requires a unique level of commitment that normal office workers are not required to perform. Still, even with a high-level of commitment, remote working can only go so far without sufficient technology to help guide the way. How else can work get done without technology? For remote workers:

To be a click away, doesn’t that sound quirky and unconventional? Well not to remote workers it does. Technology helps bridge communication and accountability barriers that working remotely creates. Work can be completed from anywhere. And the truth is, organizations will eventually run out of excuses to deny or fear remote working. Time will eventually change how we all feel about remote working, whether good or bad, it is needed in order for us to grow. Work doesn’t evolve on its own. The evolution of work is dependant on whether or not we can change the way we interpret how we work, when we work, and where we work. Successful remote working exists, but not without transparency of what is expected from everyone involved.

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Closing Notes & What’s Ahead

Thanks again to our guest: Simon Salt, six-year workshifting veteran, photographer, writer, speaker and author of Out of Office.. We appreciated your interesting and intellectual take on remote working.

#TChat Events: The HR Technology Mic Drop

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Working Remotely: Is Staying Connected 24/7 A Good Thing?

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Technology has given us the ability to stay connected 24/7 which is a blessing and also a curse. One of the downsides is that the lines between work and down time have become increasingly blurred. Many companies feel that employees should be available nights, weekends and even on vacation. Some provide employees with smartphones with the understanding that they will be accessible whenever they are needed.

Not all employees object to this. The majority of respondents to a recent Gallup Poll said that being able to work remotely after hours was a good thing. With 42 percent saying that being able to stay in touch with the office during down time was a “strongly positive” development and 37 percent saying it was only “somewhat positive.” However, only about a third of respondents said that they “frequently” connected with work after hours.

Whether they object or not employees who spend more hours working remotely outside of normal working hours are more likely to experience stress. Despite this, for most of us being connected to our job almost constantly is the norm.

Still there are a few leaders speaking out again the current 24/7 work cycle. Earlier this year, Arianna Huffington spoke passionately at the Wisdom 2.0 Conference about the need to step back. She talked about waking up in a pool of blood after cutting her eye and breaking her cheekbone when she collapsed from exhaustion in 2007. At the Huffington Post, she established a policy of disconnecting from the office where employees are not expected to answer email after hours or over the weekend.

Some European countries have made radical changes. The German labor ministry voted in guidelines which prevent ministry staff from being “penalized” for failing to respond after hours. Some German companies, including Volkswagen, BMW and Puma, restrict after hours email. VW even stops forwarding emails to staff shortly after the work day has ended.

In France, employers’ federations and unions signed a “legally binding agreement” that requires employees to disconnect from the office after working hours. This agreement affects the French offices of some non-French companies including Google, Facebook, Deloitte and PricewaterhouseCoopers. Meanwhile, in Sweden the city council in Gothenburg voted to try out a six-hour workday with full-pay for its staff.

Are these changes a preview of what’s to come in the US? It doesn’t seem likely. Does this mean that employers should be forbidden from contacting employees after hours? In our culture of staying connected 24/7 that doesn’t seem likely either. But there should be some room for compromise.

Is it urgent every time our smartphone bleeps or buzzes? Probably not.

(About the Author: Annette Richmond, MA is a writer, optimist, media enthusiast and executive editor of career-intelligence.com. Having changed careers several times, including working as a career coach, she has a unique perspective on career management. When starting career-intelligence.com over a decade ago, her goal was to provide a one-stop online career resource.

In addition to being a writer, speaker and consultant, Richmond contributes career-related articles to various other sites including ForbesWoman. She holds a BA in English from Sacred Heart University and a MA in Applied Psychology from Fairfield University. She resides in Rowayton, CT, with her husband, Eric, and their four-legged kids.)

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