How to Equip Your Employees to Work Remotely

StrategyDriven Managing Your People Article | How to Equip Your Employees to Work RemotelyWhen you’re forced to shift the operations of your business to a completely remote format for your workers, as many companies have been recently, you might not know exactly where to begin. Most business owners won’t have planned for a situation where none of their employees are permitted to be present at the business’s physical location.

If you are among those companies that are finding themselves in a bit of a tough situation at the moment, in that you don’t have all the resources on hand for your employees to properly perform their jobs from remote locations, it might take a bit of time to get everything in order, but there are plenty of options available. Read on for tips on how you can best equip your employees to work remotely.

Get the Right Tech

The first thing that your employees will need to have at the ready is the right tech to do their jobs. While your offices are probably set up with desktop computers, printers, and other equipment that your workers need to do their work, few people have everything they need to do their jobs from home. Furthermore, it isn’t necessarily advisable to allow your employees to use their personal computers for sensitive work.

As such, it is a good idea to look into laptop rentals for your employees to use throughout the shelter-in-place protocols. You can rent as many laptops as you need for as long as you want. Moreover, you can ensure that these laptops have all the necessary software installed on them, allowing your employees to work remotely.

Increase Accessibility

Once your employees have the right equipment on hand, they will then need to have access to your company’s files and servers. Perhaps your physical offices are set up with hard drives that contain all your business’s digital files and data, or maybe you have a cloud-based server that is only accessible by computers at your offices. Both scenarios present a challenge.

Start by investing in a cloud-based server, if you do not already have one in place. There are many benefits to doing so, benefits that will last beyond the remote working order. Not only will your employees be able to access company information from remote locations, but you will also be able to enjoy automatic software updates to your systems, which will help to keep them running efficiently and securely.

Focus on Communication

As well as the right equipment and access to files and folders, you will also need to ensure that the lines of communication between employees, teams, and management are open. Use communication tools such as Slack and Zoom to ensure that you are regularly meeting with your employees and checking in.

There will certainly be some hiccups and rough patches during this process, but as long as your workers know that they can reach out and collaborate with you to troubleshoot any issues, you should be able to keep things running effectively until your employees can once again return to your offices.

9 Team Building Activities Your Entire Staff Can Enjoy

StrategyDriven Managing Your People Article | 9 Team Building Activities Your Entire Staff Can EnjoyIn theory, organizing team building activities is a perfect way to get your team to get to know each other outside the office and form a stronger bond within the office as a result. However, finding the right activity for everyone if you are running a company that has multiple departments can be a real challenge.If your workforce is very diverse, there’s a good chance that preferences are going to vary – especially if you have a workforce in which there are employees who are not all the same relative age. This is why you need to find a way to celebrate these differences by choose activities everyone feels comfortable participating in.

Here’s a list of fun team building exercises everyone can participate in and enjoy.

Scavenger Hunt

Purpose: Teamwork

A scavenger hunt is a classic team collaboration game. The rules are easy:

Split your team into equal sized groups and send them out with a list of fun things to find. You can choose whether you want to do this in the office or outside the office. Set a time limit for all groups and put together some fun clues or even riddles that will force your teams to get creative and use not just their eyes but their brains as well! Whichever team comes back with the most items once time has run out is the winner.

Minefield

Purpose: Communication and problem solving

For this indoor game, you will need an empty room or hallway and a bunch of random office items. You can use office chairs, paper, boxes, anything you have around the office that isn’t too delicate or expensive to create obstacles in the empty space or “minefield.” Divide teams into pairs in which one of them must be blindfolded.

The other one must guide that person from start to finish without setting off any mines. That means they cannot step on any obstacles or venture outside the given boundaries. Their only guidance is the voice of their partner. You can change the number of pairs and obstacles depending on how difficult you want this game to be.

Three Truths and a Lie

Purpose: Getting to know each other

This is a really easy game. Before starting, give each team member four slips of paper where each of them can secretly write down three truths and one lie about themselves. It’s very important that the lie is believable. Instruct them not to reveal to anyone what they wrote down!

Then allow 15 minutes for conversation between the team members. This is the time when everyone should go around the room and talk about their written talking points in random order. The goal here is to convince others that your lie is a truth while you try to guess other people’s lies by asking them different questions. Remember- you should not reveal your truths or lies to other team members, even if everyone else has already guessed everything!

Say My Name

Purpose: Breaking stereotypes

Everyone should write down names (e.g. someone famous) or types of people (e.g. professor, doctor, wealthy, athletic) on name tags. Then put those tags on each team member’s back or forehead so they cannot see who they are but everyone else can.

Give people a few minutes to talk to each other and ask questions. The point is to treat everyone according to stereotypes related to the name on their tag. After each team member figures out who they are, they should exit the game and leave the rest of the people to continue playing. This game allows your employees to have fun and engage in conversation while confronting stereotypes at the same time.

StrategyDriven Managing Your People Article | 9 Team Building Activities Your Entire Staff Can Enjoy
Office Trivia

Purpose: Bonding

This is one of the easiest team building games to put together! All you have to do is come up with a series of questions about your office and then test your team’s knowledge. You can ask a variety of questions such as: “What brand of computer does a certain employee use?” “How many people are in the finance department” or “How many windows are there in the office?” or “Who takes their coffee with cream and sugar?”

Besides bonding people through conversation, this fun and easy team building activity is great for testing how observant people are and how much they know about their office, company and colleagues.

Community Service

Purpose: Enhance teamwork and collaboration

Find an activity that reflects your company values, get out of the office for a day and do something good for your community. This team building activity is not only excellent for getting your employees together and bonding through something that’s incredible positive, it’s also great for the overall image of your company in terms of local marketing.

When businesses go out into their communities and help people in need, the members of the community take notice and reward those businesses with loyalty.

Mural Painting

Purpose: Enhancing creativity

For this fun and creative team building activity you will need paint, brushes and something to paint on. It can be a canvas or a wall of your building/office. The point is to give each member of the team complete freedom to paint whatever they want. Give them a general theme and then let everyone create their own colorful masterpieces.

If you are giving an individual canvas to each employee, put them together and display them in your office as a mural once they are dry. Some people might refuse to paint at first because they don’t think they are talented, so make sure you explain to everyone that this is not a contest. This game’s purpose is to show that everyone has a creative side once they overcome their fears of showing it.

StrategyDriven Managing Your People Article | 9 Team Building Activities Your Entire Staff Can Enjoy
Make Your Logo

Purpose: Problem solving

Start by asking everyone to empty their pockets, purses and wallets and gather all the coins you can find and then place the coins on a table in front of you. Each team member should create their own logo for the company or team using the coins in front of them in one minute.

You may also use pens, notebooks, paper and anything you else you have around the office to create the logo. The logo can represent the team members individually or you can work together to create a logo for the department or even the entire organization. It’s a fun and creative game that encourages resourcefulness.

Peanut Butter and Jelly

Purpose: Communication skills

For this team building activity, you will need a small piece of paper for each employee and a list of well-known “couples” such as peanut butter and jelly, Romeo and Juliet, salt and pepper, and so on. Each team member should wear the name of one half of each pair on their backs.

Have everyone mingle and try to figure out the word on their backs while only asking each other “Yes or No” questions. Once they figure out their word, they have to find the other half of their pair. As they find each other, have them sit down while the rest of the team continues until everyone has connected with their pair.


About the Author

Tamara Luzajic is a web content writer and editor, currently working as a copywriter at Humanity, employee scheduling and workforce management software.

Here’s How Your Business Can Benefit From A Business Grad

StrategyDriven Managing Your People Article | Here's How Your Business Can Benefit From A Business Grad

Have you ever heard the phrase ‘’be your own boss’’? Yes, I think everyone does. Do you take risks? If you don’t take risks, you will always work for someone who does and will be fulfilling their dreams instead of your own. You are never too young to start an empire and never too old to start a new dream. If you are thinking to pursue your passion as a career you will do anything you can to grow your business, but sometimes you wonder, are you taking your business in the right direction? Is your approach correct? Are you making effective strategies because you want to gain that competitive edge against your competitors?

You want to be a strong entrepreneur; firstly, you need to understand the market. The foremost step in building a business is to bring your attention to the customer. Another major step is the need to identify your competitors. In any business, you will have to face three kinds of competitors. The one is direct (same product), the other is indirect (same product and services with different end goals) and the third one is the replacement (substitute product). Every business needs an organizational structure along with the passion and the skills that are needed to grow upon a business. An important factor while dealing with the business market is the efficiency of human resources. Having the right employee raises the bar of profitability and benefits in finding a balance between the organization.

As a system needs to be updated, the business affiliated employees also need to update themselves. This means taking a step further in the right direction. Employers need to consider employees with an MBA online degree which will take the company in the right direction and bring expertise and generate profit for the company. Here’s how your business can benefit from an MBA grad.

1. What is MBA?

Master in business administration is a degree that helps in developing the managerial skills of business affiliates. This degree also helps in making strategies for an organization that helps in generating profits along with helping in building effective skillsets for the company. This degree is practical for business affiliates but is not limited to government, private sectors, and other areas. This degree is considered to be one of the most popular degrees across the globe. Hence, there are a lot of alternative methods for achieving this degree.

2. Time Management

Studying management helps in building patience and bring out time management skills. It helps to understand the need to complete a task in a limited time which is not easy. Getting an MBA degree itself prepares a person to handle multiple projects at once and manage time efficiently. This helps a business affiliate to sharpen the skills which further help in meeting deadlines. Furthermore, it helps avoid procrastination.

3. Identifying the Weaknesses

It is not easy to identify and understand the weaknesses and sometimes you just keep on stalling a task to avoid it. For business grads, stalling is never an option. They understand the need to overcome a hurdle and the effect it would have on an organization if they did not. These weaknesses can easily be addressed by having conversations and delegating on the after-effects and working on the options. This understanding helps the organization more than anything else.

4. Network Building

Socializing is very important in aspects to run an effective organization. The material they learn in the classroom can be valuable in developing business strategies but it’s the people whom they meet during the process are even more valuable in terms of social investments. During an MBA degree, there are several people they connect with who can help you further and can bring great value to a business. They can be classmates, teachers and might be the people who are linked with them, so a social circle is generated which helps in bringing outcomes for the organization.

5. Quick Reflexes and Thinking

When it comes to decision making, business grads make it easier for you. As working in an organization, a lot of decisions are needed to be made in day to day operations. They help in making effective marketing decisions. Since the MBA grads know every possible thing the business needs due to their broad exposure, this helps them in making quick and reliable decisions. It helps in not only the day to day operations but also helps in making trustworthy decisions at strategic and managerial levels.

6. Develop an Efficient Process

There are a lot of processes and programs that are running in an organization. There are underlying math and logistics behind every operation that is happening. MBA grads, due to their broad exposure and horizon understand the initials of a process thus it helps them in building a strong base for the organization. They analyse the process analytically and try to resolve the issues effectively which helps them in generating more profit for the company.

7. Effective Writing and Communication Skills

Since there is a lot of writing and generating material in a business degree, this helps in building creative and interesting content for the organization. Your emails and ways of communication reflect on the professionalism of an organization. With a lot of writing and knowledge, a message could easily be conveyed adequately. These skills help in building a suitable image for the organization in front of the clients and within the industry.

8. Holistic Approach

It is very important to expand your horizons and view business in a bigger picture. There are a lot of aspects in an organization, a lot of tasks some minor and some major. MBA grads can understand the importance of what needs to be taken care of and when. This approach, in general, helps the organization and brings in revenue for sure.

9. Leadership Qualities

MBA degree provides a lot of exposure and knowledge. This knowledge helps the employee in making effective marketing and taking strategic measures for the company. They can think analytically and strategize accordingly. All these skills make them great leaders who can actively run the organization building a strong base.

Conclusion

There are a lot of factors that are to be considered while working in an organization. It is very important to understand the process and steps that help in the building of an organization. The skillsets and qualities that an MBA grad brings in an organization help the company to move in the right direction. They are the ticket to bringing greater projects with their expanded social circle and their extreme knowledge about the pros and cons of a project. These effective employees bring great revenue and provide amazing assistance to the organization with their critical thinking, so it never too late to hire an MBA grad.

Nine Lies About Work – Is it more engaging to be a full-time worker, a part-time worker, a virtual worker, or a gig worker?

StrategyDriven Managing Your People Article | Nine Lies About Work - Is it more engaging to be a full-time worker, a part-time worker, a virtual worker, or a gig worker?Is it more engaging to be a full-time worker, a part-time worker, a virtual worker, or a gig worker?

According to the study, the most engaging work status is to have one full-time job and one part-time job.


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Reprinted by permission of Harvard Business Review Press. Excerpted from Nine Lies About Work: A Freethinking Leader’s Guide to the Real World by Marcus Buckingham and Ashley Goodall. Copyright 2019 One Thing Productions, Inc. and Ashley Goodall. All rights reserved.


About the Author

StrategyDriven Expert Contributor | Marcus BuckinghamMarcus Buckingham is a bestselling author and global researcher focusing on all aspects of people and performance at work.  During his years at the Gallup Organization, he worked with Dr. Donald O. Clifton to develop the StrengthsFinder program, and coauthored the seminal business books First, Break All The Rules and Now, Discover Your Strengths.  He designed the StandOut strengths assessment completed by over one million people to date, and authored the accompanying book, Standout: Find Your Edge, Win at Work.  He currently heads all people and performance research at the ADP Research Institute.  Nine Lies About Work is his ninth book.

StrategyDriven Expert Contributor | Ashley GoodallAshley Goodall is the Senior Vice President of Leadership and Team Intelligence at Cisco Systems.  In this role, he built a new organization focused entirely on serving teams and team leaders – an organization combining learning and talent management, people planning, organizational design, executive talent and succession planning, coaching, assessment, team development, research and analytics, and performance technology.  Prior to joining Cisco, he spent fourteen years at Deloitte, where he was responsible for Leader Development and Performance Management

Ways To Invest In Your Team For Business

StrategyDriven Managing Your People Article |Invest in your Team|Ways To Invest In Your Team For BusinessYour team is important to your business, and if you’re not making an effort to look after them and to provide everything they need to be successful, then, as a result, your business will suffer. Here are a few ways to invest in your team for business.

Have A Budget For Staff Training

A budget for staff training is useful to have because there are lots of opportunities that you can give your staff to build up their knowledge, the skills that they have, and the experiences that they can receive whilst in your employment. Some businesses have been known to part-fund and even fully fund degrees, whether that’s to the University of Nevada Reno or even overseas. If they can see the benefit that it can have for the company, then any good business owner will take that investment risk and hope that it pays off. Even if you start off small, being able to offer some opportunities for learning can be great to keep your staff happy but to also benefit the business in a variety of ways.

Consider Their Mental Wellbeing

Everyone has mental health, and the way we look after it can influence how well we cope in our day to day lives. Whether it be the stress of a particular campaign that a staff member is working on or issues outside of the workplace, as an employer, you can do your bit. Think about the support you can offer to help your employees look after their mental health. Flexible working could be an option if there are staff members who might need to work home occasionally. Having more one to one meetings can be good with their line managers to discuss how they’re getting on and whether there can be any improvements or issues fixed that they’re concerned about.

Support New Ideas

Everyone can have an influence on a business, and each person can bring something new to the table. When it comes to your team, try to incorporate everyone into any directions that you want to take the business in, no matter big or small. Make team meetings more interactive and engaging for everyone, rather than the few confident colleagues who might like to talk a lot. Give everyone a chance to bring new ideas to the table, and you might find someone in your workforce that’s got something great.

Reward Their Work

Hard work certainly deserves rewards, and whether that’s in a financial form of a bonus or an extra day off, it doesn’t go unnoticed with staff. Make a point of ensuring that all staff will get acknowledged and praised for putting in the hard work. Those extra perks can be essential for staff who need it and want to feel valued within their workplace. It also feels good as an employer to reward hard work, and it inspires others to work harder too.

Your team matters, no matter how big or small they may be. Use these tips to help improve your investment in the company.