What to think about if you are NOT rushing to reopen your office.

On Tuesday we reviewed some reasons why you might want to reopen your office right away, today let’s look at some things to consider if you are not rushing back into the office. 

Giving folks the option to keep working from home makes room for those who still have challenges with childcare, or who might be living with people who are at higher risk from COVID-19. Plus, some folks have come to realize that they’re liking the perks that come from working at home. (I’m baking a loaf of bread while I write this!)

Some folks are itching to get back to the office — so once your region re-opens, you may want to make it possible for some people to come back safely (more on that in another post). 

If you are going to work in a mixed (some in-office and some at home) environment, there are some things you need to consider to make it work. 

Dealing with in-office vs. at home differences

If you’ve been doing meetings via video/audio conference, keep everyone doing that as long as folks are still working from home. When you have some people in a conference room and others on zoom, it’s a terrible experience for all — plus conference rooms might not be a safe place to avoid infection!

Intentionally maintaining your culture

We talked Tuesday about how a sense of “place” and informal conversations can help support your company culture. If you are planning to stay away from the office for a while, you need to start thinking about how to support that culture virtually. 

We’ve seen folks try:

• Intentional time for chit-chat at the start or end of meetings.
• More posts in the “Water Cooler” slack channel 
• Intentional, “How’s your weekend” check-ins on Slack or in a video conference. 
• Office hours, where everyone checks into a video call and just works “together” — you get to “see” folks, and there’s some informal chit-chat as we work. 
• Team meetings with fun/business programmed in. Play a game together, then get some business done. 

Whatever you do, take some time to experiment and see what works for your team. Doing nothing is likely to erode team cohesiveness over time. 

Continuing to innovate the way you work. 

You’ve made a bonkers amount of change in the last two months, why not try to keep it going! 

Where are the friction points, what’s not working with the way you are working right now? There are a ton of tools out there to support remote work — let’s find the best means to fix those friction points!

If there’s a problem that your team is experiencing, I’d like to hear about it! I’m looking at innovative solutions for my clients all the time — I’d love to connect you with what’s next for your team. 

Hit reply and tell me about what’s not working and let’s find a solution!