Big Picture - September 2020 - 11

If you're in the same boat as us, you should prepare for
an environment that accommodates several of your current
and future employees telecommuting. One of the keys to making this process work is to ensure you have the proper tools in
place to measure results from your employees. If you build a
system that effectively tracks results and will hold your
employees accountable to their job expectations, then you will
find much more success in managing this process.
In a similar vein, one option many companies are
considering is creating a work schedule that allows employees to be broken into teams that rotate working from home
and at the office. For example, you could split your customer
service team into Team A and Team B, and have one team
working Monday, Wednesday, Friday with the other team
working Tuesday and Thursday, then switch the days out
every other week or every other month. Another alternative
is to have Team A working Monday and Wednesday, Team B
working Tuesday and Thursday, and Fridays are telecommute days for all team members.
The advantage of this approach is it allows your employees
to work from home part-time, but also enjoy team collaboration,
which is important to any organization. It also creates the
benefit of only having to provide one-half of the work space
that would be necessary if everyone worked in the office.
Of course there are also challenges associated with this
approach. For instance, verifying that your work-from-home
employees have a proper space to effectively complete their
job is paramount. You will likely need to provide them with
workstations that may include computers, high-quality
monitors, desks, a well-functioning phone system, etc. Your
employees need to have high-speed bandwidth connections
to work effectively. You may or may not choose to provide
that service as a part of their employment contracts, but it is
something to consider.
COMPANY ENGAGEMENT

HIRING PRACTICES
At this point you may be saying to yourself that eventually
we'll beat this pandemic and things will get back to the way
they used to be. While I completely agree that we will
overcome COVID-19 and will happily go anywhere we want
"mask-free," I disagree with the notion that things will just go
back to the way they were before. I believe our work
environment is going to be different as we move into the
future. 2020 will be remembered as the year when a lot of
things changed. This will become evident as you reach back

We must focus on making the best of
our current situation and ensure that
relationships with our customers and
employees are being managed the best
way possible. This requires adaptability
and flexibility on your part. If you fight
this process, your business may fail in
the long run.
into the workforce pools and begin to hire additional
employees. Here are a few questions that your top candidates in marketing, customer service, design, technology,
etc. may ask you as a potential employer:
* Will I be able to work from home all of the time or at
least part of the time?
* What kinds of technology will you be providing me to
effectively work remotely?
* What is your approach to building teams that work
primarily from home?
* What will my interaction with my manager and upper
management be like?
* How will my performance be measured as I work
remotely?
Those who have the capability of working remotely as a
part of their job will demand that as a criteria for belonging
to a successful organization.
Like all of you, I look forward to the day when we are able to
again function with some sense of normalcy. No doubt, we will
get there and hopefully sooner than later. But until we do, we
must focus on making the best of our current situation and make
certain that relationships with our customers and employees are
being managed the best way possible. This requires adaptability
and flexibility on your part. If you fight this process, your
business may fail in the long run. If you embrace it, you can
create some valuable competitive advantages that can guarantee the long-term success of your company.

BIGPICTURE.NET

As you make changes to the nature of your work force
and some employees end up working remotely, engaging your
employees becomes more of a challenge. As we've been in
COVID-19 mode, we've tried multiple ways to keep all of our
employees connected with the overall company, their individual departments, and with each other. In the initial stages of the
pandemic, as the world was changing daily, we held staff
meetings once a week. Eventually, we moved to every other
week just to remain in touch with everyone. Of course these
meetings are held virtually so all can participate. Our department managers hold weekly meetings and, in some cases, even
hold a brief chat each morning to discuss the daily plan.
We continue to host company lunches at least twice a
month with fun options like snow cones, milkshake and taco
trucks, and other activities that allow our employees working
remotely to come into the office, eat free food, and socialize
with each other, even if it's only for an hour or so. We have
provided company-branded face masks and neck gators to all
employees in an effort to make everyone feel like they're part of
a team and safe. Some of our managers have held departmental
events for their individual teams, like a video clip activity called
"Meet My Pet" (pretty self explanatory). Reinforcing relatedness

and belongingness through the company can be challenging in
this new organizational climate, but it can be executed
successfully if you put in the effort.

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Big Picture - September 2020

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