PRESS RELEASE: Big Challenges of Australia’s Remote Working Experiment
The sudden and widespread move to working from home is posing some big challenges, for employees, supervisors and HR managers.
Managers might be wondering how to keep their people energised, focused and productive. Employees might be loving that they don’t have to travel and can stay in their PJs longer, but might be struggling with the distractions – and boredom – of working from home.
Workplace wellbeing and productivity expert, Cris Popp, says the big challenges are maintaining motivation, dealing with despair, building trust, and a lack of social connection.
“For team leaders, the challenges are particularly acute, including monitoring progress when you can’t see what people are doing and to do that in a way that is not intrusive or seen as micromanaging.”
“I know of one case where a team member put the phone on mute and took a shower during the meeting.”
Since the lockdown, Cris has been helping remote teams to set up and work from home and has found that individuals and teams with clear structures, hours of work, and separate work and home spaces are doing the best.
“Separation is key, such as having separate workspaces in the home and leaving them for breaks – I even advise my clients to wear formal clothing during work hours as it helps you switch on, and it helps you switch off.”
“Distraction is a really big issue for people newly working from home, especially with kids.”
“For teams who used to have lots of personal interaction like sales or customer service, the biggest issue is maintaining motivation.”
“Without the usual interactions, how do they know they’re making any progress? It’s like driving down the road in pitch black – it’s hard to see if you’re making any progress.”
Cris says while many of these challenges were expected, others have been surprising.
“Some of the people I’m working with are now in more meetings than ever and the volume of emails people are dealing with has increased dramatically.”
“Online meetings are more exhausting than face-to-face meetings as it’s easier to talk over other people, harder to hear what people say and conversations are often stilted. You have to be much more acutely aware of the social cues. It’s tiring.”
“Australia’s giant work-from-home experiment is really testing people’s resilience”.
To try and get a better picture of these challenges and gather data on them, Cris has devised a survey “Challenges and strategies for managing teams remotely” – https://www.surveygizmo.com/s3/5552906/challenges-and-strategies-of-managing-teams-remotely
The survey is confidential, free and available until 17/5/20. All respondents will be given access to the data.
For media interviews or more information about the survey please call Cris Popp on 0438 545 607 or via [email protected]
