Let’s stick to the good news! We have the tech, we have the knowledge, the mindset is getting there and we can totally make it! Even though work might be the last thing on your mind when worried about the health of your family, we do need to keep working. We need institutions to serve the citizens, we need economy to sustain us, and we need to keep our minds busy. Based on my 10 years experience working remotely, managing remote teams and setting up remote companies, I came up with point by point practical guide for efficient transition to work from home. Let’s go!

Prior to locking the office

• The final thing you do before leaving the office without the set date of return is moving every single resource from hard drives to the online spaces. If possible use a well known cloud storage as Google Drive or Dropbox, as they can guarantee stability. 

• Try collaborative documents systems, as Google Docs (that supports sheets, slides etc. as well), as having the files that have to be downloaded, edited and uploaded again implies risks of losing your changes do the the issues on  local devices, as well as getting into conflicts with the simultaneous modification by other team members

Sharing Resources 

• Make sure the online docs are sorted meaningfully within folder structure. If you use some wiki alike system, you will also be able to create table of contents.

• Check the permissions: who can see it as read-only, who can comment or fully edit.

• Make sure all team members receive changes alerts to the e-mail address they are actively checking.

E-Mail and Chat

• If possible, use webmail – again, in order to avoid data loss due to the local device failures.

• Try Slack for company wise chat. Make sure you have channels for general announcements, specific topics, dedicated teams, as well as emergency, leasure etc. 

• Each chat channel should have an intuitive name, and in addition a clear description of its’ purpose. Consider making some channels private. 

• Use reminders on Slack for the messages you prefer to respond to later. This way you can prioritize your communication.

• Use threads on Slack, to avoid convos overlapping within a channel. You can also choose to send the response only to the person who asked, if you feel it’s not something worth bothering the whole channel with.

• Always do username mentions. Many users choose to receive alerts only when they are mentioned personally. Can’t blame them, there is a lot of noise out there. Alternatively, you can use @everyone or @channel to ping everybody.

• Use integrations of other systems to Slack (in software dev we use GitHub, GitLab, Atlassian Jira fx) so that you receive all notifications in one place.

• Set custom alerts scheme for each channel and each of your devices (laptop, phone…). Fx, you will probably be better off with minimizing the alerts on your phone, or if you put most on the channels to 9am-5pm only, or only when your name is mentioned etc. This is super important in order to avoid burnout. Just because you can work all day long, doesn’t mean you should. Pls take this seriously. 

• Use smiley (and other emoticons) to avoid misunderstanding. It’s not a joke. A simple “np” as in “no problem” can be rendered as “no problem at all, sure, I’m more than happy to jump on that task right away” or “no problem if you absolutely assist, fine, I’ll see if I can get to that at some point”. A smiley can make a world of difference. 

The Async Collab

• Since I manage teams of freelancers who are active on multiple projects in multiple time zones, I need to do it the async way. The async collab is a big thing within the gig economy, and might as well be crucial for you even if you work with full time teams within the same zone (which probably is the case indeed, since you’ve just left the office), as many people need to take care of their families right now and can’t exactly be available 9am-5pm. 

• Use daily standup bot for Slack to stay on the same page without being online at the same time.

• Pay extra attention to task specification. It needs to be: super clear, as independent as possible of the tasks assigned to the other team members, presented to the assignee in advance in order to be able to clarify it before the expected implementation time starts. People should be able to work on their tasks even if they receive responses within 24h. If not, the tasks breakdown and specification hasn’t been done probably, most likely. 

• Introduce the sense of iteration. Fx weekly goals. This way people don’t need to wait for you, the manager, to show up and give them the tasks for the day. It’s also easier for everybody to plan their time. 

• Measure the value a team member brings, not the time spent. Fx, many times I use literally 1sec to send a thumbs up as the approval to somebody’s suggestion, but that might just unblock the 20h of work pending. 

• Use e-mail and chats only for general discussions. If there is any info / comment / question related to a specific task / document, it should be posted in its’ context. A comment in a Google Doc, a question in Trello etc. This way you will avoid situations when a person logs in and sees a never ending chat where most of the info gets buried.

Conf Calls

• Consider conf calls carefully, as there are pros and cons to it. While a conf call does provide a great way to discuss and adds to the social aspect no doubt, if over done, it can also create too many interruptions to the work and private life of the team members. 

• Use tools as Zoom and Hangouts, and ask everybody to use video if possible. If people don’t feel comfortable with exposing their home and family to the camera, the background can be blurred or replaced with a digital wallpaper.

• Always send the call invitation as a calendar event, makes it easier to keep up with the time zones and busy schedules, and people can opt to use reminders. Send the meeting invitation at least 24h in advance. Remember, just because we can’t leave home, doesn’t mean we shouldn’t leave work, and plan our free time. 

• Send meeting agenda in advance, add resources if applicable, let your team members prepare prepare info, questions etc. for higher efficiency.

• Follow up with meeting minutes and actionables.

• Consider recording the calls for those who missed it, or exporting the transcript suitable for word search. 

• If for any reason more than one meeting participant is in the same physical space, suggest using individual laptops (provided they have them on their disposal ofc). Makes it easier to follow who is talking when etc.

• Start each call with a small chat, it’s not a waste of time, it’s investment in the team, company culture, mental health and human connections after all. 

Start Remote

• Prepare a Kick-Off Doc with all the info your team members might need. Links, credentials, explanation of tools, meeting schedules. Again, make sure the tasks are specified well, and the iteration goals clarified.  Do not rely on just sending chat messages whenever you need your team to do something. This makes people feel obliged to be available 24/7 and is a straight way to burnout.

Make it Last

• Long term, consider fine tuning your remote work processes. Upon each iteration, conduct a retrospective asking each team member to share what they think has space for improvement, or what is really great and the team should keep on doing. Remember, this is not in order to blame anybody, it’s simply to reflect on the tools, process, way of work for everybody’s benefit. 

• Even longer term, when your team members don’t meet the members of the other teams for long time and you feel that the company culture is getting blurry, consider using a tool like Donut, which randomly connects people company wide for 1 on 1 casual chat. 

Stay safe, be as agile as ever, and pls feel free to reach out with any feedback and / or question you might have at any point.