In this worldwide shift from corporate offices to home workspaces, we’ve dropped something behind. That’s nothing but instant access to our managers at any point in time during our working hours. Right now, working from home or remote working has become a new trend. It’s now a compulsion for organizations across the globe. As a result, thousands of managers and team leaders worldwide suddenly find themselves managing an entire team working from home. Indeed, that can be not very comforting, mainly if it’s the first time you’re doing it and didn’t get a lot of time to prepare.

Being skilled at managing employees working from home mainly calls for a psychological leap. It is applicable particularly for the conventional managers who have a habit of managing everything from the vicinity of his workspace. At first, business managers, used to monitoring productivity based upon employees’ “desk time” and visible activity levels, might find a transition to working from home unknown and awkward. Employees, too, might feel out of sorts at the start, as they adjust to significant shifts in their days. There are pros and cons of working from home, and this article will speak a length about the same.

How to Lead a Team Working from Home?

To lead a team working from home, managers must understand they have to loosen their grip a little while discovering ways to continue to hold employees accountable. Without continuously monitoring employees in a shared workplace, they can find success by concentrating more on what can be done and whether it meets definite quality standards.

Here is a list of six strategies to increase the availability of the taskforce when working from home. Early indications are that implementing these strategies can reduce employee and manager stress, address difficulties about employee’s work progress, improve productivity for them and their teams, and restore and sustain healthy communication channels while working from home.

#1 Communication is the Key

A good option for the managers to help the employees working from home is to call or message his direct reports at least once a day, generally without a particular plan. Say things such as, “Checking to see if you need anything,” “If you have any questions today?” Rather than merely asking for direct reports, it’s advisable to maintain the frequency of connection proactively. This way, you’ll always have a finger on your team’s pulse, primarily those who hesitate to reach out to their managers and add more concerns to their boss’s platter while working from home during this unprecedented crisis.

#2 Blast through Questions with Office Hours

Managers make several decisions regularly and present their people with scores of data points through informal conversation. A good manager has to find out whether these communications are adding any merit to the deliverables. You can conduct meetings while working from home an hour a day in which you can invite your team to join on a video conferencing app if they have any queries that can be addressed within minutes. For more complex problems, you may schedule a meeting with that particular resource to put an end to the problem.  

#3 Enhance Safety through Clear Boundaries 

While working from home, expanding your availability as a manager can also have its downsides. Some team members may not wish frequent connections as they continue to adapt to the new way of working and wrestle with complicated emotions. Others may want more time from you than your capacity permits. Be transparent about your availability plan while working from home, set limits, and invite others to do the same. By giving others space and setting expectations, we meet people and give them the authority to set their boundaries while working from home.  

#4 Be Open to Concerns of your Team Members

Our prior rules of engagement for working from home have gone by the wayside, so no one has reliable solutions. Invite your team members to come to you with concerns, even if they don’t yet have resolutions. Explicitly indicating you want to know about growing concerns will facilitate broader periscopic vision and access to more comprehensive sets of solutions while working from home.

#5 Provide Stability through Constant Rituals

When life is full of unpredictability and continuous transformation, rituals provide predictability and pattern. While we aren’t aware of what difficulties we may face tomorrow, we know that there will be some. We can manage the unpredictable better by holding it within structured rituals whenever possible. Here are examples of how managers have ritualized their availability while working from home: 15-minute morning check-ins to regroup on overnight progress and establish a course for the rest of the day while working from home. By forming a usual ritual and leading by example, managers can encourage a sense of fun, connection, and safety, even while the forces of change hit the teams.

#6 Enable Capacity through Feedback

The nuances of nonverbal communication are lost while working from home, even with the video turned on. People’s requirement for recognition and the excellent news is heightened in trying times. Keep some time at the end of the day to provide precise, positive feedback for achievements. Small and regular performance guidance surrounds major corrections down the road and enables everyone to stay in sync despite distance and daily development while working from home.

When this sudden shift to working from home can create mental stress and more complexities to everyday activities, your job as a manager is to eliminate as many barriers to forward momentum as possible. By demonstrating a clear availability plan, you can help your team members feel better connected to you and address any anxieties or queries as they emerge while working from home.