FOCUS on TECH – Stay Home, Stay Engaged
FOCUS on TECH – Stay Home, Stay Engaged
According to a recent Stanford study – 42% of Americans are now working from home. That’s more than double what it was at the beginning of 2020!
The reality of working from home presents challenges for Small Business Managers. One of those challenges is: How to Keep People Engaged?
Technology can help with this, but technology alone is not the answer.
Something we’ve found to be indispensible is having a regular cadence of meetings. In addition to this, we found that we needed a way to keep people engaged during those meetings.
Here is a concrete example based on what we’ve implemented for our team:
- Every Work Day at 8:30am we have an all-hands meeting w/ cameras on.
- Specific Daily Agenda – every day has an agenda where we provide relevant updates and give reports on customers, sales, projects, etc
- Theme of the Day: we spend 15 mins on a pre-selected theme.
Management Monday – Goals and goal setting – what we are planning on accomplishing this week.
Thankful Tuesday – A time to count our blessings. Everyone is encouraged to share thanks from one team member to another, or to a circumstance, a family member, etc – mix it up! This practice gives everyone a chance to express themselves and hear what other people are thankful for as well as giving us an opportunity to bond over shared experience(s).
Wild Card Wednesday – Something unusual and fun to keep people engaged and to connect in ways we don’t always get to do now that we aren’t sharing space in an office together.
Training Thursday – 15 minutes of training on whatever topic. Either something that the entire company needs or break out sessions into smaller groups so that different areas can train on things more specific to their needs. Tech Group, Admin Group, etc
Fun Friday – Some kind of fun team building game that will give people the opportunity to connect and bond over something that is often silly, but strengthens our cohesion as a Team.
We’ve kept to this cadence for about 4 months now. We’ve tweaked it and changed it up a bit, but we’ve found that it keeps us engaged and talking to each other. We’ve made it our own expression of how we like to work together. It keeps us feeling like a team. It helps us feel happier and remember our part, our contribution to this group. This Team. Our Team.
Learn more about how Technology alone is not enough! Schedule a complementary consultation with Jeff by clicking below.
You can watch the full “FOCUS on BUSINESS” episode here.
