Looking after your staff when working from home is a unique situation that most businesses wouldn’t have thought would be the case, however, due to the recent pandemic, that’s all changed.
In order to prepare your business for anything like this in the future, here are some tips for looking after staff when working from home.
Check In With Them Daily
One thing that’s worth remembering is that you’re always keeping up communications with your staff on the daily. You don’t have the luxury of seeing them around the office anymore, and so if they’re all working from home, a group zoom meeting might be good to have in the morning at the start of the week, and then a daily call or email should also be done to make sure everything is ok with your staff members and that the work is still getting done. For some staff members, they’re likely to be working with a family in the household or at least a partner. However, for some staff, they may be living alone, and of course, this can get quite lonely.
As human beings, we all need to have connections, and so if there’s one thing that’s really important when it comes to staff working from home, it’s that you should be checking in with them, even if it’s nothing related to work itself. Make sure you’re speaking to your managers and relying on this information so that everyone is getting a bit of facetime or a call from other staff members throughout the working week.
Make Sure They’re Safe & Comfortable
Eventually, everything will return to some degree of normality, but it’s important to make sure you have made a COVID workplace safety plan for when that time comes. For the time being, however, it’s important to make sure your staff is safe and comfortable when working from home. Not every staff member is going to have the luxury of a home office or even a desk to work on, and so it’s still your responsibility as a company to provide the right support, whether that’s equipment or even furniture.
Encourage Break Times
Break times are still necessary, even if they are working from home and have a degree of flexibility in their work. It’s important that you’re monitoring their work and that you encourage all your staff to take proper breaks. This means a proper lunch break sat away from the desk, and regular breaks needed to help stretch the legs and to give the eyes a rest from the screen. If you’re doing this, then staff will end up being more productive and eager to work hard.
Don’t Expect The Normal Work Productivity
With the above being said, you shouldn’t expect the normal work productivity. There are going to be days where the combination of working from home, family life, and perhaps a lack of change is going to affect people mentally. Be wary of this, and try not to expect everything you normally would.
Looking after staff is always important, so use these tips to look after them.