Remote Work Tips Archives

4 Things You Can Do for A Virtual Christmas Party

What are some things you can do for a virtual Christmas party?

Secret Santa Gift Exchange
Virtual Karaoke
Holiday Team Building Games
Send Out Christmas Kits

Christmas parties are a significant event for employees. This is where the whole team comes together to spend a day without work — enjoying the company of their colleagues and reaping the benefits of their hard work throughout the year. But during this season, where health and safety are at stake, normal parties have to be put on hold. But, it doesn’t mean that you still can’t celebrate. Thanks to the internet, there are many things you can do for a virtual Christmas party! Continue reading to learn more.

Secret Santa Gift Exchange

Is hosting a Secret Santa a yearly holiday tradition in your workplace? Giving your gifts in person may not be an option this year, but you can still do it virtually.

You can randomly assign gift-givers and recipients through handy websites like Draw Names and Elfster. Plus, on these websites, participants are given the option to create their own wish list. It makes the gift-giving process so much easier.

You can even take it up a notch by opening your gifts together as a team.

Virtual Karaoke

Karaoke will always be a part of any special occasion in the Philippines. Did you know that you can take your karaoke party online now, too? And it isn’t so hard to do! There are a handful of free karaoke apps like Smule that you can utilize to sing alongside your friends virtually.

You can even do it over video conference platforms like Zoom. The host just needs to share his screen or queue the list of karaoke tracks on a Watch2Gether link, and your team will be ready to sing the night away.

Holiday Team Building Games

What’s a party without games? Christmas team building games aren’t just to get your office in the holiday spirit, it can also benefit your employees’ growth at the same time.

There are so many online team building games you can host for your virtual Christmas Party. Like a Holiday Scavenger Hunt where teams collect holiday-inspired items that can be found inside their homes. You can even utilize online game websites that host online Jeopardy, trivia, bingo, and even escape rooms!

Send Out Christmas Kits

Sending out a care package or a Christmas kit is another thing you can do. This idea also provides tangible reconnection for your employees who may feel disconnected.

Get creative! You can send out Happy Hour boxes, home office essentials, self-care packages, gourmet gift packets, or even game sets.

Key Takeaway

Don’t let the current circumstances stop you from having fun with your team during the holidays! These things you can do for a virtual Christmas party stated above are enjoyable, engaging, and best of all, safe.

4 Effective Tips for Managing a Team During the Pandemic

How do you manage a team during COVID-19?

Determine What Roles That Can Be Done Remotely
Prepare Employees for Frontline or Remote Work
Frequently Check On Your Team
Stay Connected

If you are a team leader, the pandemic will test your skills in managing a team. Several establishments have sent their employees home for remote work to prioritize health. But some establishments cannot operate without employees reporting for work in the office or establishment. As a team leader, it is important to know how to manage a team during the COVID-19 pandemic. Read on to learn more!

Determine What Roles That Can Be Done Remotely

Not all kinds of work can be done from home. Some examples of this are frontline work in the hospital, pharmacy, food establishment, transportation, and security. As a team leader, you have to determine what roles can be done at home, and what roles are not. Prioritize health and safety as much as possible and send workers home.

Prepare Employees for Frontline or Remote Work

Now that you have determined which stays at the business establishment and who goes home, you have to prepare your team for some changes. Make sure to lessen or remove the risk of exposure of your front liners by following health and safety guidelines mandated by the government. Provide personal protective equipment and disinfecting products to your team. Sanitize your business establishment regularly and install protective shields such as transparent acrylic glasses.

For remote workers, ensure that they have all the technological equipment ready for remote work. Teach your team about the required applications and tools because not all people are technically-savvy in the latest hardware and software.

Frequently Check On Your Team

These uncertain times will be hard for everyone including you. Understand that everyone will need time to adjust to these changes. Frequently check on your team not just to supervise their work but also to learn how they are doing mentally. With remote work, some people will have to juggle responsibilities in the home. On the other hand, frontline work is also difficult because of health risks. Always monitor their health regularly.

Remind your team about their tasks and also the importance of their contributions. Be compassionate and always appreciate your team members on their effort in these tough times.

Stay Connected

Communication is vital in these times because everyone is scattered in different places. Always have a communication channel that is consistently open during work hours. This way your team will be able to voice out their concern easily.

Schedule video meetings regularly so you can align your team members about important matters. Chat and messages are useful but being able to see your team’s faces and reactions can help you stay connected.

Confirm in written communication all the important things that should be said clearly. This is to avoid verbal miscommunication and misunderstandings.

Key Takeaway

Now you know how to manage a team during COVID-19. As a leader, you are the one that they look up to as the decision-maker. Know what roles can be done at home so you can remove the risk of exposure to your team. Prepare them and give them time to adjust to the changes. Your team is your responsibility so it is important to check up on them frequently. Always keep the communication line open to keep everyone connected. It may be hard to supervise and manage a team in these tough times but the key here is to trust your team.

The Best Tips for Remote Team Communication

What are the best tips for remote team communication?

Use Appropriate Messaging Channels
Schedule Regular Video Calls
Set Clear Guidelines and Instructions
Conduct Regular Team-Building Events

The work from the home culture we currently experience in this pandemic brings a lot of positive and negative effects. It allowed us to spend more time with our loved ones while still completing our tasks at work. One downside from working from home is the lack of face-to-face communication that can make you feel alone and depressed. We all miss an energetic high-five and a gentle pat on the back for doing a good job. Today, we will be learning how to make the best of remote team communication. These tips will make work from home so much easier!

Use Appropriate Messaging Channels

Emails are a part of a workday even back when there was no pandemic. It is useful in sending important documents and formal messages. But it is not a good channel for asking questions that need to be answered immediately.

Find a messaging application that has “rooms” that can represent your office departments. Having chat rooms that are always open can help your team collaborate right away at any given moment.

Some companies have a more informal chat room for non-work related chats. It is a virtual water cooler where employees can hang out and just chat. This can help build camaraderie in employees and reduce work stress. Even back then in the office, casual chats would help lighten the workload!

Schedule Regular Video Calls

It is important to check-in on each other once in a while. The lockdown and pandemic have caused people to feel anxious and depressed. The lack of social interaction and excessive working has made people feel burnout. Some people are not even tech-savvy, to begin with. So it is important to show some care and empathy with each other.

Not everything can be done by chatting or emailing. These two channels of communication, while useful, lack the non-verbal elements like facial expression, voice pitch, and hand gestures. Video calls can have all of those elements, except physical touch.

Weekly video meetings can connect all employees and align them with the announcements, goals, and achievements of the team. This can provide an opportunity to voice concerns and opinions about a project. But always remember to only schedule meetings with a purpose as to not waste your teammates’ time.

Set Clear Guidelines and Instructions

Supervising remote workers is harder than supervising in a physical office. You cannot see what your team member is doing at office hours. This can bring about an issue of trust unless you do something.

Set clear guidelines for expectations for everyone in your team. Set deadlines, daily tasks, and communicate instructions about timekeeping and taking breaks. When you set guidelines, it removes the guesswork on what a team member must abide by. Everyone will have a routine to follow.

One example is communicating the guidelines for breaks. Avoid settling for verbal communication and put your instructions into writing to avoid miscommunication. Be very specific. For example, you can either set a specific hour for lunch from 12 noon to 1 pm. Or you can assign a 1-hour break every day that your members can take any time.

Conduct Regular Team-Building Events

Not all kinds of office work will provide constant human interaction. Some occupations, like software programming, is more focused on constant computer work. Even more so, when in remote work setup. This doesn’t mean that we have to stop all fun activities that used to happen back at the office. There are a lot of fun ideas that could be implemented in a virtual setting.

Having fun can affect personal connections and even work itself. A study showed that happier employees tend to be more productive. A closer relationship with one another will also allow a team member to open up and communicate ideas and concerns better.

Key Takeaway

Good communication is key to making remote work more pleasant and fun. Physical distancing doesn’t mean that you have to distance yourself emotionally from your team as well.

There are different communication channels that you can use to maintain a good workflow and camaraderie within your team. Just remember to communicate clearly what you need from your teammates. Schedule regular video calls to check-in on your team and their concerns. All these virtual channels can be used not just for work, but also for fun because a happy team is a productive team. Follow all these remote team communication tips to create the best remote work experience for everyone.

Nail Your Next Virtual Presentation with These 7 Tips

What are some good tips to nail virtual presentations?

Test Out Your Internet Connection and Audio
Utilize Up-To-Date Tools
Make it Visually Appealing
Make Your Words Readable
Look into The Camera
Remove Distractions
Practice

If you’re one of those individuals who are working remotely or from home, it is well worth investing some time in learning how to execute a seamless and engaging virtual presentation. Compared to in-person presentations where you have so much room to work with, virtual presentations impose quite a few challenges and intimidation. Tech issues, distractions, or your audience can also stray away. Because of this, you need to work twice as hard. Luckily, we’re here to give you some great and effective virtual presentation tips to deliver a powerful, fun, and engaging presentation! Read on for more!

Test Out Your Internet Connection and Audio

Tech issues are definitely one of the major mishaps that come with presentations. But, with in-person presentations, you can still go on and engage with your audience until it gets resolved. With virtual presentations, you no longer have this luxury. So, to ensure a seamless and tech issue-free presentation, make sure to test out everything beforehand. Make sure that your internet connection has good speed — enough to cover everything you’ll be doing. You’d also want to test your audio and your microphone. You wouldn’t want any of these to fluctuate during your presentation.

Utilize Up-To-Date Tools

The possibilities of technology are endless! There is a plethora of online tools nowadays that you can utilize to make your virtual presentation convenient, fun, and engaging! Craft it by adding in chats, polls, features, and more.

Make it Visually Appealing

You have one biggest challenge in virtual presentations — distraction. Your audience will likely be more distracted during these times, so make sure to step up your game! Visuals are one of the most effective strategies for this. To capture your audience’s eye and attention, incorporate informative and visually appealing graphics. Or you can even switch up the colors and the fonts to make it look more organized. But make sure that it isn’t overwhelming as well.

Make Your Words Readable

It’s best to add in minimal words to your presentation and let yourself do all the talking instead. This way, your audience will have their ears on you. However, if you will add in some text to your presentation, make sure that the font size and type are readable.

Look into The Camera

It may seem awkward to be talking to a camera at first, but this step will make all the difference. Looking into the camera will make each individual feel like you are talking to them personally.

Remove Distractions

Before you head on to share your screen, make sure that there are no unnecessary tabs, distractions, or any possible intermissions. Plus, you should also stay in a clean, clear, and quiet area to avoid any interruptions.

Practice

As the saying goes “practice makes perfect”. It’s always a good idea to practice and run through your virtual presentation. This way, you can also relieve your nervousness and makes sure that everything goes seamlessly.

Key Takeaway

In this COVID-19 world where most of us are now working remotely or from home, it pays to be equipped with some great virtual presentation tips. Try these out for yourself! Use these strategies above and you’re bound to execute a powerful, informative, fun, and engaging virtual presentation.

A Beginner’s Guide to Working Remotely

What are some good tips for remote working?

Find A Perfect Location
Over-Communicate
Be Equipped with the Right Tools
Find A Routine That Works For You

Remote working has been more prevalent during the past few years, more so now, that the COVID-19 pandemic has made it a great option for employees to stay safe and secure. If you’re new to remote working, it can impose a few challenges. It is completely different from the way you work on your 9-5. But, don’t worry, we’ve got some of the best practices for you. We’ve curated a complete guide on how to work remotely for beginners! This will make your transition as seamless and comfortable as possible. You’re bound to nail the remote working life before you know it.

Find A Perfect Location

Now that you are not working in an office setting, you have all the freedom to choose where you’re going to work. Location matters more than you think. It is one of the essential keys to succeeding in working remotely. So, make sure to choose it wisely.

If you opt to work from home, there are some adjustments you need to make. It can be challenging to make yourself actively and productively work as there are so many distractions around and it is so easy to be comfortable. Make sure that you allocate a separate area for exclusively doing work. If you don’t have a separate room to use as an office, choose a corner or a space that is quiet, not distracting, and well-lit.

Or, it’s best to just choose a co-working space instead. By doing this, you are solidifying a place to be in “work mode” which can increase your productivity.

Over-Communicate

We all know that communication is essential in the professional environment. While in a typical office situation, your co-workers are just a tap away, on a remote work setup, you no longer have this luxury. Because of this, it is even more important to communicate to ensure that everyone is on the same page and there are no misunderstandings. If you have any questions, make sure to clarify and double-check, and never hesitate to ask for help when you need it.

Be Equipped with the Right Tools

As a remote worker, your job will depend on your tools, specifically, technology. Ensure that you are equipped with everything you need. Make sure you have all the platforms and software downloaded for your job. Apart from this, make sure you have a reliable device and Wi-Fi connection. Other great investments to have while working remotely are noise-canceling headphones, a place to co-work in, a mouse, or maybe even a second screen. Trust us, these will all be integral to productivity and proficiency.

Find A Routine That Works for You

One of the top things employees love about working remotely is flexibility. You are given more time and freedom. However, for people who are so used to a routine, it can be fairly challenging. But it’s all about maximizing and using the time wisely.

Key Takeaway

Remote working has definitely been beneficial for everyone, especially during these times. However, if you’re new to the setup, it can take some time to get used to. But it doesn’t have to be as challenging. This guide on how to work remotely for beginners has all the best practices you need to nail your remote working life. Looking for a place to remote work? Click here to see how Workplays can help you!