Week Three of self isolation getting you down? Here’s our top tips for keeping your team engaged with actions you can take today
Be mindful
…of the impact of those who have chosen to self isolate, those who have been told by you to self isolate, those who are choosing to work from home and those who have decided to man the front line.
It’s a very difficult balance. No one is being a hero by going into the office. But leaving team to run a whole site that normally had 5-20 people in it alone seems counter intuitive. And actually painful for a dedicated team.
We’ve been thinking of our home workers and our frontline team in different ways – a small thank you like gaming vouchers for a very dedicated manager running a single site very nearly single handed, to cupcakes to a team member who’s entire family had to self isolate when the dad became symptomatic. Just a little reminder that we are thinking of them.
Keep talking
We have set up weekly team meet via Zoom to stay in touch, we are sending our daily bulletins to our network and have upped our calls, Whats Apps and chats. It’s a challenging time and people need reassurance and to know you are thinking of them so talk more, not less.
Plan for the long haul
This will be a 6 month plus project potentially so can your business deal with working like this for 6 months plus?
Time to really think about operational requirements – if you have run this lean now, were you operating with unnecessary spare capacity before? Is it time for a structural rethink? If home working is working now is this something you might encourage in the future and reduce office costs?
It’s a time to consider all of this.
Safety first
If you cannot shut your premises entirely think about the following;
- Single use of kitchen and bathroom facilities
- Deep clean if multiple people at work AFTER work
- Marking out 2m exclusion areas with hazard tape
- Separating desks to ensure 2m space
- Publishing safe practices – regular handwashing (even if you haven’t been to the loo!), gloves when handling goods, drop zones for packages, etc
- Put big signs up EVERWHERE so visitors know the rules
Use the time wisely
Remember the days when you were so busy you wished the world would stop so you could catch up on your to do list? Well this is now. Use the time productively.
We have been creating project plans drawing up all tasks that before now, as we were too operationally busy, we didn’t have time to do and are utilising spare resources to do this stuff.
- That bank integration with your account software you haven’t yet done – well now is the time to do it.
- All those Windows upgrades you keep saying no to when you crank up your PC – now is a great time to do it.
- Making sure your operating manual is 100% up to date.
- Creating videos to train team members remotely in the future.
- Getting ahead of your marketing by creating content.
- Staff training in order to help them do their job even better.
- Train yourself up with online courses.
We will never again (hopefully) have this period of quiet so it’s a once in a business time opportunity to personally develop and get lots of sh*t done!
Find new opportunity
Always wanted to get online but haven’t managed it yet? Well it is now or never. We have taken many retailers online in the last couple of weeks – businesses that didn’t think their business could go online and now it is. In a matter of weeks progress has been made that people have been speaking about for years. It is a pivot on their original business model but opportunity has been found in adversity so open your mind to the possibility of new opportunity even if it is a really challenging time.
Tool Up
Houseparty– social calls
Zoom – for remote conference calls
Trello – for project management
Slack – for chatty comms
