The business landscape this year has changed drastically while dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic. Many companies throughout the country have moved their employees from working in the office every day to working remotely from home. This shift in work environments have posed its own challenges on top of an already challenging year and one of those challenges is ensuring your team is staying motivated and meeting goals from home.

While necessary during this time, working from home has its challenges. Some of those include more distractions like kids, e-learning, and social isolation. These things can all lead to less productivity. However, there are ways you can keep your team motivated, engaged and productive during the ongoing crisis we’re all facing.

Establish Clear Expectations

If your goal is to make sure your team is responsive and engaged during certain hours during the day, communicate that expectation in a clear and simple way. Work with your team to develop a daily or weekly schedule so you and your employees know when they need to be working. Periodically check in to ensure communication stays open and hold them accountable for attending meetings and hitting deadlines.

We recommend having daily check-ins and setting virtual office hours where it is a clear expectation as to when they should be working. Many managers rely on getting daily face to face time with employees and while working from home, that is not possible. Schedule quick morning check-ins via video chat, phone call or instant message. These keep employees engaged and feel they are still involved in the daily aspects of the company.

Use the Right Tools

We are lucky to have so many tools at our disposable that allow working remotely to be easy. Make sure your team is set up with different tools that will help them stay connected and productive. These tools include project management apps like Asana and Airtable, or Monday.com, instant messaging apps like Slack and Microsoft Teams, and video conferencing via Zoom and Google Hangouts. Making sure your team has access to these tools will allow you both to be on the same page, no matter where they are working from.

Provide Support

The COVID-19 crisis is bringing out a lot of anxieties, fear, loneliness and negative emotions in people. Having less social interaction as a result of working from home is a main contributor to these factors. You  can be there to provide emotional support to your team. You can set the tone for your team’s virtual offices with a calm and upbeat presence, which helps create a level-headed workspace where people can still get things done.

You should also be more available for check-ins and other questions that might come up given these unfamiliar circumstances. Open communication is key to showing that you are there to support your employees. As a leader, you also need to encourage self-care among your team, who are mentally trying to adapt to a remote workspace, the stress of new environments, and the daily stress of updates surrounding COVID-19. Encourage your employees to exercise, get enough sleep and continue with their lives as normally as possible.

Encourage Dedicated Workspaces

Encourage your team to establish dedicated workspaces in their home. These can help free employees from the normal distractions of home life. With many parents needing to be at home with their children due to school closures, an office away from the family can help maintain focus and stay on task. Even if you make a temporary makeshift space your office, this can help you mentally separate work from home.

Non-Work Interactions

With all this social distancing, one thing that might not be obvious is facilitating non-work interactions among your team. This is especially important for employees who are used to be in the office everyday and social interacting with their peers. Creating time and space for workers to talk about news, hobbies, their lives and other topics helps relive stress and feel better connected. One way to do this is to host a virtual happy hour or a virtual team-building exercise to build bridges between employees.

Most importantly, ensure that your team knows that you're all in this together.