Edmonton Leadership Coach: Part 2 – Virtual Workforce
Let’s assume that most businesses are going to do their best; top of line thing that they’re worried about there is the virtual environment, the social distancing. So what are, if you can, talk to me about what the impact of social distancing is on the business in can and Alberta and what are some strategies that and things considerations that you’re offering up to your customers or to think about you, bch, so I think the best place to start is probably in the field.
We have quite a few businesses, trades businesses out there, that are still fortunate enough to be actively working and producing, producing Revenue, which means that they’re Crews, their field guys, in the field working with each other, keeping the distance. Right now health officials are encouraging us to at least keep that distance of two meters apart, which I think is important. The very important or critical aspect is, from a leadership standpoint, encourage your employees to understand that they’re not immune from this, but not to, you know, really assign value and assign significance to the impact of something like this in the workplace. So keeping distance is important, keeping distance not just in the field but also, if it’s back into the office, keeping distance there.
So other than that, making sure that we keep hygiene in mind if we are working close together, keep that going. The other alternative is to consider virtual workplace, in other words, working from home. And when we work from home, or when we get our employees to work from home, we have to keep in mind a few things. Number one, employees work from home: do I have control over them? Are they going to do what needs to be done if I’m not there, if they’re not in the office? Very important is to set those expectations with your employees to start off with.
Follow Up Is Important
The second thing is to make sure, in terms of monitoring, that you’re following up with the employees. It’s not just about compliance; it’s also about Community, it’s also about making sure—remember at the end of the day we are social creatures—so it’s important that we keep our employee employees engagement and work product activity up and running as much as we possibly can during these tough times. So connect with your employees on a regular basis, make sure that we’re talking about ongoing progress and achieving the results they need to achieve, even during times like this.
The last thing I’ll say about virtual workspace, of course, is also making sure that privacy and business information is kept on top of mind the whole time, and what that means is, if you’re using systems to to virtually connect with your employees, make sure that those systems have the privacy requirements in place and making sure you’re not putting your business at risk. So that’s really, from a high level overview, that’s essentially what what we want to look at from working from home as well.
What are your thoughts on the impact of long‑term of covid, people going and working from home? Do you think that’s going to change the way the world Works in, say, six to 12 months, when you know no longer do we need to be self‑isolated? Do you think that businesses are going to be more open to virtual work than they were previous to this situation?
Oh, without a doubt. I don’t necessarily anticipate that it’s going to create sweeping changes, but when when us humans are are dealing with adversity and we’ve got no choice but to change the way we do things, being exposed to those new ways of doing things—in this case working virtually or dealing with virtual employee teams—people are going to realize that the perceived, traditionally perceived, risks of doing that are not actually that risky. So definitely going to have some changes in attitudes, changes and behaviors in the way that we work for sure.
Well, how long have you been working from home?
A long time, Jeremy, a long time. It’s been a couple of years. Of course working from home has its advantages, but also its disadvantages.
Yeah, I’ve been working from home for eight years and love it. I encourage it. I don’t see myself going back to our corporate office there. But so I think, I think a lot of people are going to come in and realize that hey, there is a better way.
Contact Workforces to Help Your Business
Yeah, oh yeah, yeah, absolutely. And it’s, and it’s, you know, when you when you when you also consider the environmental impact and then the urgency associated with environment these days, it’s a great opportunity. D the technology is there, there’s really no need to have to be two‑faced.
Now, saying that Face. Two‑faced is, from an employee engagement standpoint, is absolutely critical, is so important that people get together in person if they’re able to. And if you’re unable to get in person with your employees, employees as a group, make it a, make it an important, you know, imperative in the business that we get together in groups.
I mean, just using Zoom as we’re doing right now—Zoom is not necessarily just endorsing Zoom—but any conferencing solution that’s worth its weight has tremendous capabilities in terms of connecting and keeping people connected. I agree.