Bring Out the Best in Your Team From Home

This year’s National Work Life Week has arrived at a time where solely working from home is very much a day to day reality for a large part of the working population; those that have been separated from their place of work, colleagues and daily work routines. Ordinarily, this week would present itself as an opportunity for both employers and employees to focus on ‘wellbeing at work’ and ‘work life balance’, with employers able to use the week to provide activities for staff and to showcase their flexible working policies and practices. These things however, have already become much talked about topics for some months now, forming part of our ever changing work life environment as dictated by COVID19.

As a result of economic pressure leading to emotional pressure with employees facing losing their jobs, money worries and keeping safe and well, never has there been a more pressing time for focus on leadership. Safeguarding your team’s morale and motivation is paramount right now to avoid a downward spiral in the people that make up your business and to ensure the best recovery possible post Coronavirus.

Actively facilitating a sense of team and belonging is critical at a time like this, as is continuing to nurture people’s potential and rewarding and celebrating achievements. Here are a few points on how you might achieve just that:

Lead your team and help them grow

Rather than just leading your team with your management hat on through what is effectively a time of trauma, encourage learning and help them grow by investing in their career and professional development. Take time to review your team’s ambitions and career goals and show them that they are valued. Actively encourage them to focus on achieving something towards their career development, with so many learning opportunities available online, to suit all budgets (some are even free!) this is a good time to make learning a priority once again.

Consider matching employees with a mentor (within your business or externally) which may provide another opportunity for learning, particularly valuable early on in a career at a time where learning from others ‘on the job’ and in person is not as it once was. Potential may suffer if people can’t gain access to more experienced colleagues that can share their knowledge and keep them enthused and interested in their work.

Incentivise, Inspire and Motivate

Inspiring and motivating teams remotely can sometimes prove far from straightforward. However, by maintaining a workplace culture virtually, you can actively encourage creativity and inspired thinking. This will in turn play a huge part in keeping your team motivated at this time. Look at how you might encourage new ways of thinking and achieving targets, and reward these achievements by sharing success stories with your people and via your company’s social channels.

Virtual Water Cooler Moments

The benefits of an office environment shouldn’t be done away with entirely just because we aren’t all physically in the office together. Via online video facilities, bringing teams together for not only business related meetings but for coffee and informal catch up ‘in person’ or a beer o' clock brainstorm can prove more productive and enjoyable, and plays a part in reminding employees that they are very much part of the wider team. Provide opportunities for virtual social interaction while working remotely and reduce the sense of isolation amongst teams.

Teaching the teacher

Take a leaf from your own book, and lead by example! Stay inspired and ahead of the game by looking at our ‘Motivation and Engaging your Team’ short course as well as our ‘Future Leaders’ course, both running in November 2020. These courses will be looking at ways to motivate employees whilst increasing productivity, and apply effective employee engagement within your business. These will also help you build your own confidence through a greater understanding of what’s needed from a leader in today’s workplace.

 

Written by Ann Bell. Ann has recently joined the Enterprise Team as a Bilingual Communications Officer.