Having spoken to a number of change management coaches, as well as reflecting on what has worked for the senior leadership team at the ACT, we have put together four things to think about in this COVID-19 world to help you with managing your team remotely. These four things consist of maintaining boundaries, being transparent with your team, managing your positivity and listening.
Maintain boundaries.
Now that everyone is working remotely we need a way of striking a balance between checking-in with people, and this is about looking after their well-being, and looking at their work performance, or checking-in on their performance. If you blur these boundaries you can make your team feel unable to talk about how they are feeling (the checking-in part) as they may worry you will think this will affect their performance.
Another aspect to take into account is to think about the boundaries between work and home: some people can move fluidly between the two, and they find that is how they get balance, whereas others need to separate the two, which is increasingly difficult without the standard commute at the beginning and end of every day. One way of tackling this is to ensure you go for a stroll in the garden, if you have one, before and after work, or otherwise simulate that period where you transition from home to work and vice versa. It’s of course very personal to the individual.
Be transparent.
Show the people you work with how you have come to the decisions you have made so that they feel informed and engaged and not dictated to. Telling the story of where you are now, and what the next stages will be will really help, for example being honest about fire-fighting now, e.g. working out how to use online systems - and then what the next stage will be, e.g. once the systems are in place the priority will be to manage client relationships. I found recently my team were worrying about the potential to be sent back into the office before they were ready, which prompted me to talk to them in our regular all-staff briefs about my philosophy, and reassure them accordingly.
Manage your positivity.
Whilst some negativity is healthy, most research evidences that positivity is good for you – for your mental state, physical health and motivation. Try to communicate that positivity in virtual meetings. I find that the more I connect with people virtually, the more I am enjoying it, and I feel connected so therefore happy which makes me smile more, and the whole thing is a virtual circle. To support this positivity I would encourage trying out dressing for work as much as possible (or at least ensuring you’re not in pyjamas or a track suit every day), using the camera for meetings as much as possible, as when people retreat behind a screen it can be troublesome in more ways than one, and, moving into our fourth area, really focus on listening hard to others, and enjoying it! Also check out treasurers.org/strategic-insights-podcasts for additional ideas on positivity.
Listening
My final tip is to listen to your team. And here I mean really listen, not only to what people are saying but beyond the words. What are people dealing with at home and how are they coming to their work meetings? There may be simple things you can do to help, such as moving the time of the staff check-in from 8.30am to 9.30am to enable your team to sort out their children’s school day before the call. Important things will emerge if you really listen, and we all need to make the time for that.
For further information on COVID-19 specific resources please look at the Policy & Technical COVID-19 resources and COVID-19 coaching support. For more general information on well-being visit the ACT Career Hub, The Treasurer, the ACT blog site and the ACT website – which includes the strategic podcast series.
