Getting the Right Gear

Every job requires a particular set of tools. Cooks at your local fish and chip shop need a fryer. Your hairstylist wouldn’t do a great job without a pair of scissors. Your employees won’t be able to work efficiently or be productive if they don’t have the tools they need.

There’s no one size fits all when it comes to completing business tasks, every business has its own unique set of needs to meet goals and strive for results. Here are a few tools that we recommend using for your remote business workforce.

• Microsoft Teams for Communication
• Microsoft Planner for Scheduling and Tasks
• Office 365 Outlook for Emailing and Calendar
• Cloud-Based Phone System for Handing all Phone Communication
• Headset (Plantronics, Jabra, Sennheiser)

Encourage Breaks

Encourage your staff to take short breaks throughout the day. Whether it’s just to stretch their legs, nip into the garden with their dog or even just have a coffee in a different room. If your staff are new to working from home, it can be overwhelming, overloading can wear them down. Putting both yourself and your staff at risk of making mistakes.

A change of pace recharges your mind and helps to inspire some new ideas you can apply to your business.

Daily Video Updates

I took this particular idea on board a couple of months ago after seeing the CEO of a £500 million+ turnover Bio Technology company sending company-wide daily update videos. They were simple 3-4-minute videos, informing staff of how the business is doing and what had been happening that day. He even added a couple of little personal notes and asked employees to share little personal updates in the comments (through Microsoft Teams).

Why? It’s a highly effective way of boosting staff morale, you’re incredibly busy running a huge company, trying to keep everything together whilst working from home – but you still take the time to reassure your staff that things are running how they should be. Goals are being met. Results are being produced. You’re proud of your teams.