This pandemic has led many businesses and corporations to transition majority of their workforce to work from home. Undergoing this monumental change, within a short amount of time, has caused much anxiety and stress to the workforce and their families. Not to mention that a large population of those workers who even have to deal with their kids’ virtual learning—students who are now forced to continue their education at home.
Here are some general tips on how to succeed while teleworking. If you can find these helpful, great! If any of you are experienced teleworkers who have other teleworking tricks up your sleeve, please do share those in the comments below. For now, let’s go over the five tips to succeed in teleworking:
1. “Move In” To Your New Office or Workspace
Don’t just randomly sit in a corner of your room, a couch, or broom closet underneath the stairs to pull up your laptop and start working. You need to officially “move in” to your new work area. It doesn’t have to be a nice home office. It still can be a corner of your room, a couch, or a broom closet underneath the stairs, but it has to be official. Make it ‘your’ workspace. In doing so, you help set your mindset to “work mode.” This also works the other way around. You don’t want to make it a habit to walk around your house with your laptop, working everywhere. That will only blur the lines between time to work and time for family/self. Moving in can also set an expectation in your house that “you are working” when you’re at your special location, giving you that invisible office door. There is more to this. We’ll discuss this further in #5.
2. Establish “Commute Rituals”
Working from home also means, no commute. For many, especially those who have to drive at least 20 mins or more to work, this is wonderful news. Besides the practical benefits of having no commute, many use the drive to work is a necessary ceremony to get your mind set for work. It helps you rewire your brain from thinking about things you have to do at home, so you can focus on your duties and tasks at work. On the flip side, the commute home is a way for you to decompress after your work day--not to bring any concerns at work home with you. Any frustration and stress from work should not affect your mindset at home.
Now that the actual act to commute is gone, it’s important to come up with your own work-from-home “commute rituals” to help you rewire your brain—telling it when to start and to stop working. In the morning, I make it a point to do my usual rituals to prepare for work. I shower. I dress-up. Read. Write. Get coffee. No, I don’t wear my usual work clothes, but I don’t stay in my pajamas. Heck, I even fix my hair as if I am headed out to work. That’s my new “commute ritual.” Some people do a walk outside to have that travelling effect to start the day. I also know of others who actual do a quick drive around the neighborhood, then back at home. Do whatever you think is best for you. The most important part if that you do something that tells your mind and body that it’s time to work.
Many of you may want to also start your day with a workout. Before we were forced to telework, I do my workouts in the middle of the day at our work gym. Now that we’re working from home, I started working out with my wife in the afternoons. This helps me establish a reverse commute ritual, that tells me work is over.
3. Be Patient with you Loved Ones at Home
You may have a spouse, kids, dogs, cats, or other pets…be patient with them. Especially with the kids and pets—they’re trained to think that if they see you at home, that means you’re free to play; in their heads, your work is over and it’s time to play. It doesn’t matter how many conversations you have with your younger kids about how “Daddy is working from home, okay?” Some of you may even have your kids sign contracts to “not bother you while in the home office” or even have them sign NDAs (Non-Disclosure Agreements) in case they hear anything confidential or proprietary during a loud conference call. It doesn’t matter. They are trained to think, “Mom/Dad Home” = “Mom/Dad Free to Play and Do Whatever I Want.” There’s nothing you can do about it, or whatever you can or cannot do is just not worth it. Be patient with them. Enjoy the child-cameo moments during video conference calls. It’s going to be the new norm moving forward—for everyone. Be accepting of that towards your colleagues, and towards yourself. Ultimately, your relationship with family is much more important than your work.
4. Connect Often—Individually and as a Team
Our work-from-home situation right now makes it much easier to forget about connections, and succumb to the pits of isolation and the geographical/physical silos our current situation puts us in. Let’s not fall for this. We’re fortunate to be living in an age where technology can connect us almost instantly and seamlessly with anyone, from anywhere. Let’s make it a point to exploit these technologies to connect even more with our teams. It doesn’t have to be a formal meeting with a formal agenda. Think of it as the digital MBWA or “management by walking around.” MBWA is a term first used by senior executives in HP (Hewlett-Packard) back in the 1970s. Think of the quick phone calls or video chats as your virtual MBWA.
Pat Lencioni, author of “The Five Dysfunctions of a Team” and founder/president of The Table Group, has shared that one of his clients, a CEO in a top 10 company (in size) in the U.S., has done a three-hour, no-agenda video conference meeting with his executive team at the start of this pandemic. They didn’t talk about the operations of the business, or of any business matters at all. Instead, they talked about their family and home life during this COVID-19 pandemic. They talked a lot about their personal lives and situation. They introduced children and pets to their executive peers. They used this opportunity to deepen the relationship with their peers by allowing them a glimpse of their home and personal lives.
Make it a point to be intentional in meeting with your teams, and in having regular one-on-one calls with your direct reports. If you have a large team, meet as a group at least once a week and have one-on-one quick calls, with each direct report, once a week as well. That is on top of the ongoing chats or IMs your team uses on a daily basis. Quick 5-10-minute calls with each individual is enough. If you have a smaller team, and you can afford to do quick calls daily, do it!
General Stan McChrystal even shared that he started doing virtual “happy hours” with his consulting team when they started working from home. He opens his virtual room at a certain time in the afternoon, and invites everyone to join with their choice of beverage—beer, wine, tea, coffee, or water.
Lencioni also mentioned how he’s glad that his kids are on “Call of Duty.” Normally, parents try to pull their kids away from video games. With our current situation, Lencioni thinks that these online games allow a good amount of socializing with friends while being on a “lockdown.” Even the World Health Organization (WHO) is “recommending video games as an effective way to stop the spread of COVID-19” calling it #PlayApartTogether. Just about a year ago, WHO has labeled the term “gaming disorder,” as an actual label for those who are hooked to video games.
Connect often, no matter what.
5. Disconnect Appropriately
Tip #1 talks about “moving in” to your new home office. This helps ensure the proper mindset for work. With that same effort, we also need to create a stoppage of work itself. We need to fight the temptation to be “always-on” for work. Maintain proper work/life balance is more important now than ever before. You need to know when to turn work off—and keep it off until you’re officially scheduled to be back. For yours and your family’s sake—disconnect appropriately.
Since setting up my work equipment at our home office, I’ve started leaving all my work mobile devices at the home office. My iPad, my phone, and my laptop. I’m not 100% there yet, but I make it an effort to do it. Again, disconnect appropriately. Jon Acuff, author of “Finish: Give Yourself the Gift of Done,” said this perfectly in one of this video blog posts—“If you’re not careful, ‘I can work anywhere’ turns into ‘I need to work everywhere.’”
Final Point + Conclusion
Teleworking has many perks and benefits, but it also shares some disadvantages. One disadvantage may be something we all have taken for granted while working on campus. Power outage, a/c not working or desk needs repair? Call campus facilities management. Trouble with your workstation, your internet, or anything technical difficulty? Call tech support. These are the type of things we all need to get used to NOT having now that we’re teleworking. You’re “on your own” now, for the most part. It’s like the difference you realize when you start owning a home from renting. You can’t just call the property superintendent to make repairs to your home or apartment. It’s all on you now.
It’s impressive how we’re able to stretch our teleworking capabilities at this massive scale here at Navy Federal. That’s over 13, 000 new teleworkers! With all the emotions that come along with these times—anxiety, stress, excitement, fear—let’s be reminded to be level-headed and be more intentional on how we approach this new work set-up in order to be successful.
Crowdsourcing FTW
My hope is that these five tips can help you navigate these new, uncharted regions teleworking. Please share some other tips you’ve learned from this experience, or from past experiences in your professional career. We need all the help we can get! Take care, and be safe.