May/June 2020 - BAY OF PLENTY BUSINESS NEWS

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18 BAY OF PLENTY BUSINESS NEWS May/June 2020 How to adapt to remote working There are many corporates who have already rolled out working from home programmes and these should have support mechanisms in place. While it is difficult to replicate best practice overnight, the following advice may be useful to individuals and teams going through these difficult times and asking staff to work from home. Companies should take responsibility for the health and safety of their staff wherever they work, and in normal circumstances this would include a health and safety risk assessment through guidance to staff before working from home. Given current circumstances, this is not possible and so employees need to take more responsibility. Here are some considerations. Suggestions for individuals • Try and create a practical and ergonomically good working environment in the home. If you do not have a dedicated place to work, try to create an area for example on the kitchen table. Do not try to work off sofas or soft seating for any long period of time. • Your chair should have a good back support. Make sure that neither artificial nor natural light reflects off your screen. • Be very careful how power cables are laid out. Use battery power and recharge periodically rather than having cables as trip hazards. • Remember to take regular breaks while you work. Take your eyes off the monitor, stand up and stretch your legs. We need to keep this in mind especially when working from home, as we often take breaks in the office because of co-workers talking to us or inviting us for coffee. At home without typical office distractions, we easily forget about it. • Do not isolate yourself from others. Take time to stay in touch with your colleagues. A break might be the right time to call one of them for a quick office chat. • To reduce the possibility of excessive blending of work and private life, try to maintain your previous daily routines - work at the designated hours, get ready to ‘go to work’, change clothes after finishing work, etc. • For some people it is difficult to find a divide between working from home and home life. Taking a walk before you start work and when you finish can help. This may also be advisable from a wellbeing perspective. • You may be used to working on a big screen in the office and only have a laptop screen at home. This can cause eye strain after extended periods so it is advisable to take breaks. Suggestions for managers and teams This challenging time can be an opportunity to develop new skills and habits that will increase team flexibility and mobility. • Communication is the key. It can become very isolating working from home for more than three-to-four days. To avoid this feeling, it is important to maintain constant communication within the team. • Schedule group calls with colleagues regularly through the week to ensure that this is a social interaction about business and wider issues. This is the time when the full use of collaborative software tools Skype for business, Zoom, Teams, etc can be leveraged to their full potential. Learn how to share and work on documents amongst colleagues in real time and use the video and instant messaging capabilities. • When using videoconferencing tools, use the cameras to keep face-to-face contact. This increases the engagement of the participants, forces us to focus on the content of the conversation and increases our activity. • Maintain transparency to strengthen trust among team members. Schedule your days and share your calendars so that everyone knows each other’s availability. Keep each other informed if a person is unavailable during the day. For more on Bayleys, see www.bayleys.co.nz/ workplace At Bayleys, we believe relationships are what businesses are built on and how they succeed. We understand that to maximise the return on your property you need: Professional property management A business partner that understands your views and goals Contact the Bayleys Commercial Property Management team today. Bayleys Commercial Property Management 07 579 0609 jan.cooney@bayleys.co.nz SUCCESS REALTY LTD, BAYLEYS, LICENSED UNDER THE REA ACT 2008 ALTOGETHER BETTER Residential / Commercial / Rural / Property Services
May/June 2020 BAY OF PLENTY BUSINESS NEWS 19 Keep staff communication open As we head out of Alert Level 4 and into Level 3, I reflect on the past month. I know that the experiences and challenges I have had – as a business owner, a manager of people and as a working mother – have also been reflected in those around me. HUMAN RESOURCES > BY KELLIE HAMLETT Kellie Hamlett is Director and Recruitment & HR Specialist, Talent ID Recruitment Ltd. She can be contacted on kellie@talentid.co.nz We’ve all had daily challenges, struggles and sometimes wins, trying to keep up with daily routines, communication, business as usual, and home schooling children. Normal as we know it and probably business as usual – are phrases of the past. As business owners we know we are heading into hard times. As parents trying to home school young children, the hard times are already here. It’s been a period of adjustment. Flexibility along with adaptability are our new norms. We’ve learnt to get by on the simple things in life. Spend quality and enjoyable time with those in our bubble and we’ve learnt that perhaps we really have been living a somewhat materialistic life and at times the simple enjoyment in life has been overlooked. But, as the weeks have gone on, it’s certainly got hard – hard to keep the structure, hard to keep leading and hard to keep the momentum. Our working environment has changed, our jobs have changed and some are finding it difficult to switch off now that work is in the home. This can be stressful, particularly when coupled with additional responsibilities such as caring for dependants. I feel we are being bombarded from all angles. The online presence that is now expected has become a burden. It’s overwhelming – webinars, strategies for survival, coping during lockdown, etc – the screen time we are now exposed to is huge. Don’t get me wrong, it’s definitely helpful and needed, it’s just overwhelming. In a time when mentally we are in coping mode, with lives that were already overloaded by social media, websites and apps, it’s now become so much more intense as it is sometimes our only link to the outside world. Coupled with this intensity there is the worry – the past four weeks has seen sudden changes to our daily life, routines, work, family and social lives. We are experiencing social isolation, loss of connection, our support networks are no longer there in the same way, and for many there has been a loss of shared purpose. There is also plenty of anxiety and uncertainty around what the future may hold for both business owners and employees. Recognise that people are going to respond differently to the new working and living environment. We still have responsibilities to the people we lead, even though we may not be in the normal workplace environment. A flexible and lenient approach would be expected where possible, especially as many are managing other responsibilities in the home. Our responsibilities as employers, addressing the mental health and wellness of our employees, should include having a working from home policy, talking with each employee and making a work from home plan around what is manageable given individual circumstances. A normal workload may be simply unachievable while working from home, adding more psychological stress to already stressed employees. What can managers do to support their employees working remotely? • Regular team and one-onone check ins. • Provide a work plan and working from home, flexible hours work policy. • Leniency and flexibility with consultation. • Regular communication. • Listen, check in and ask the question – are you ok? • Address concerns. • Ensure there are clear expectations. • Assist where possible with setting up an adequate office environment with access to resources needed to ensure the job can be done. What can employees do? • Try for a daily routine, structure your day, exercise is really important, meal breaks, making time to talk to colleagues, friends and family. • Keep communications lines open with your manager. • If you are struggling with work, your arrangement at home, completing required hours – again, keep the communication lines open with your manager. Just remember, for most of us this is uncharted territory – we are all learning as we go and it’s challenging. Reach out to others, keep communication open and be kind, always. PAULA LINES LL.B | Director ROTORUA 1268 Arawa St Rotorua TAURANGA Virtual Office
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May/June 2020 - BAY OF PLENTY BUSINESS NEWS

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