Attached is a piece of work I’ve compiled and synthesized from many articles written on how leaders/managers should be leading their teams through COVID-19.

1. Successful Leadership
through COVID-19
Compiled by Ronald Tonkin
Cell: +27824509916
Email: ronnietonkin@gmail.com
Ronald is a professional project and program manager specializing in large scale change
projects and guiding businesses through their digital transformation.

2. Context: Remote working is a component of Digital Transformation
Current Working State: Covid-19 remote work for most employees, some returning to the office now.
Future Working State: Mix of remote and co-located working team and transitioning from working from home (WFH) to working from
anywhere (WFA)
Reality check:
• In the past few weeks, you’ve pulled off a feat you once believed impossible: Without notice, planning or training you became manager and
leader for a remote team you may never see in person.
• Most organizations’ scenario planning did not anticipate the necessary operational responses to ensure business continuity to address the
ability or bandwidth of the COVID-19 lockdown.
• When it comes to virtual teams, the biggest mistake managers make is operating like it’s business as usual.
• As a leader, you have had to look for solutions that are:
o common & known
o driven by situations (case on case basis)
o a result of improvising existing processes
• Unusual times call for unusual solutions. As Winston Churchill said: “Never waste a good crisis.”

3. Introduction
While the Covid-19 “enforced working from home” has some benefits, such as avoiding traffic, many employees and companies find it challenging. One
employee at an internet company quipped that his workday changed from ‘996’ to ‘007,’ meaning from nine to nine, 6 days a week, to all the time.
The abrupt shift to remote working in response to the coronavirus has challenged the typical approach to managing teams. Traditionally, teams thrive
when team members are co-located, with close-knit groups all working in the same place. The office environment allows frequent in-person contact,
quickly builds trust, simplifies problem solving, encourages instant communication, and enables fast-paced decision making.
Common Challenges of Remote Work
• High-performing employees may experience declines in job performance and engagement
• Lack of face-to-face interaction leading to “out of sight, out of mind”
• Added time and effort needed to locate and access information from co-workers
• Social isolation and loneliness are common complaints about remote work and can cause employees to feel a sense of “belonging” less to their
team/organization
• Distractions at home – there is a much greater chance that employees will be contending with suboptimal workspaces and home-life responsibilities
Managed correctly, remote working can boost productivity and morale; managed incorrectly, it can breed inefficiency, damage work relationships, and
demotivate employees.
As a leader, be ready to adopt a ‘test and learn’ mentality by being ready to recognize what isn’t working and change it fast.

4. Provide direction, confidence and resilience
Leaders need to energize the whole company by setting a clear direction and communicating it effectively. Employees rely on leaders at all
levels of the business to take action and set the tone. In these times, communications from senior business leaders to managers must prioritize
employee health and business sustainability.
Communicate regularly and candidly with employees. Offering a strong vision and a realistic outlook can have a powerful effect on motivation
across the organization. It is essential to foster an outcome-driven culture that empowers and holds teams accountable for getting things done,
while encouraging open, honest, and productive communication. Gartner research shows that employees’ understanding of organizations’
decisions and their implications during change is far more important for the success of a change initiative than employees “liking” the change.
One of the top engagement drivers for employees is seeing their work contribute to the company goals. Employees who feel confident about
the importance of their job contributing to the success of the organization feel less anxious about their job security. It’s your responsibility as a
manager to create a great place to work, even when that place is from a remote home office.

5. Contextualize coronavirus for the organization
Leaders must be a trusted source for accurate and up-to-date information on coronavirus and how it is impacting the organization. Do not
share information from social media or tabloids. Instead, leverage trusted resources such as the World Health Organization and the Centres for
Disease Control. Contextualize information and data as much as possible so that it specifically relates to your organization.
If COVID-19 is the reason you've been made to unexpectedly shift to remote work, understand that not everyone on your team is suited to
work remotely, and that should be acceptable for now.
As companies transition to the new normal, it’s important to acknowledge that some employees may be facing other pressures at home,
leading to feelings of isolation and insecurity. Leaders need to respect and address additional needs.
Managing people is one of the most difficult elements of remote working, not least because everyone will respond differently to the cultural
shift and challenges of the home-working environment.
If you or someone on your team is struggling to adjust to working from home, remind everyone that this situation is temporary, and will
hopefully be short-term. Know that you’re not alone—the challenges you’re facing are not unique to your team, and you will all get through this
by working together.
Keep up team traditions and rituals. Companies are built on professional relationships – trust and transparency are key in your relationships
with your team and require even more effort when working remotely. The team will soon feel ‘at home’ with their new environment if daily
routines of meetings and celebrations are kept as similar as possible.

6. Finding a new routine
For managers, the challenge is to lead, inspire, and direct your team in their daily course of work, while being physically remote.
• Don’t micromanage
Establishing robust working norms, workflows, and lines of authority are critical, but don’t respond by micromanaging. That will only disengage and fatigue already stressed employees. Don’t fixate on
perceived performance problems; lean on established performance management systems and existing, contracted KPI’s and SLA’s.
• Set the rhythm
Moving to remote working disrupting the office-based flows and rhythms and it can be easy to hit the wrong note or miss important virtual meetings due to packed schedules. Spend time
with your team addressing the nuts and bolts of how you will work together. Cover the daily rhythm, individual constraints, and specific norms you will commit to and anticipate what
might go wrong and how you will mitigate it.
• We’re in this together
Remote work requires a considerable shift in work culture. Without the seamless access to colleagues afforded by frequent, in-person team events, meals, and coffee chats, it can be
harder to sustain the kind of camaraderie, community, and trust that comes more easily to co-located teams. Urge employees to maintain regular professional and personal interactions
with their peers, even if those check-ins are virtual. Encourage employees to leverage communication platforms they already use to create new ways to work together.
• You’re on Camera
Working from home blurs the lines between professional and personal lives. Team members may feel added stress about the impression they create on video, whether because of the appearance of their
home workspace, interruptions from young children, or even family members sharing the same work-zone. Acknowledge these limitations and anticipate interruptions graciously and provide support by
suggesting ways of making the videoconferencing (VC) more comfortable and engaging for the team.
• Promote Work-Life Balance
A lack of work-life balance is one of the top drivers of burnout. Data shows that unplugging after work is the biggest challenge faced by 22 percent of remote employees. Lean into the norms and
expectations you established at the outset and encourage your employees to adhere to a set schedule and to step away from work when operating hours are done. In doing so, you can help your team
avoid feelings of burnout and boost your team’s performance.
Expect extra-ordinary home life challenges for some team members; e.g. additional medical responsibility, abusive family member, small children demanding attention, noisy pets – the list is
endless. Treat each issue with utmost respect and turn to experts in the organization for support and help if necessary.

7. Cultivate bonding and morale
The best thing you can do as a manager right now is to suspend your disbelief and put utmost trust and confidence in your employees that
they will do the right thing — which they will if employers provide a supportive structure.
Many of the kinds of activities that nurture morale for office bound teams—such as casual lunches, impromptu coffee breaks, or after-work
social activities—are not possible in a virtual environment. Team members should encourage one another to introduce their pets and family
members and to show any meaningful items in their remote working space. Working remotely, teams need to make a more conscious effort to
be social, polite, precise, and tactful—to ensure everyone feels just as safe contributing remotely as they did in person.
One of the first actions for the remote team should be to provide feedback to the team on their new workspace at home. There are many
resources available online for information on building a home office work-zone and team members are usually keen to assist each other with
sources and ideas. According to a recent study from the National Research Group, 51 percent of Gen Z find working from home distracting and
41 percent say they don’t have the necessary resources.
Use the first one-on-one meeting with team members to get feedback on the following:
• Comfort level with their new remote working environment and what issues you can assist to resolve, e.g. sharing space with a spouse who
might also be working remotely and also need to be involved in numerous VC’s.
• Work hours, especially if you’re used to having office hours, e.g. start and end times, lunch break, and other breaks. Tell them it’s entirely
reasonable to leave an ‘out-of-office’ note that they’ve gone outside for a brief walk or the shops to buy groceries.

8. Equip employees adequately to get the job done remotely
Make sure employees have the technology they need to function effectively and to be successful remotely. Here are the tools of a remote office that you’ll want for your team:
• Content Creation: Software which allows for joint document creation, live co-editing and joint white-boarding (e.g. MS 365, G Suite, Confluence)
• Digital Workspace Management: A shared place where work is tracked so you can all have full access to project progress and assignments of who’s doing what. (e.g. Trello, Jira, Asana,
Smartsheet, MS Planner, Basecamp)
• Video Conferencing: An integrated video tool that considers remote data network challenges and that provides your team face time together (e.g. Zoom, Webex, MS Teams, Google Meet)
• Synchronous/Channel-based communication: A chat tool to have a constant, real-time connection with your team. (e.g. Slack, MS Teams, Basecamp, Hipchat, Google Hangouts)
• Document Sharing/Storage: A repository for sharing files and documents, where everyone can access the files they need. (e.g. Dropbox, Confluence, Sharepoint, Baidu Cloud Disk)
• Virtual Whiteboard: Used to track work with Kanban boards, backlogs, team dashboards, and custom reporting. (e.g. Azure Boards, Jira, Trello, Asana).
• A common calendar: A team calendar that shows vacation and holidays, important launches and due dates, and shared meetings so you can visually see everyone’s availability. (Google
calendar, MS Outlook, iCloud Calendar, Trello, Asana)
• Polling: A tool to facilitate interactive presentations, retrospectives, team learnings, etc through interactive Q&A, polling and engagement. (e.g. Kahoot, Ideaboardz, Slido, Poll everywhere,
Menttimeter)
Invest in the best: It makes economic sense to kit out your remote teams with the best tech you can afford: HD laptops, tablets and phones, and access to the fastest, most reliable home
network.
Help employees properly secure their home networks: Employees’ home networks are part of your business continuity program, so treat them as such. Recommend strong passwords on
their routers and Wi-Fi and conduct penetration tests if necessary. Require your staff to have a minimally performing home network (fiber or 5G) and have them be prepared to tether to their
mobile devices for backup access to the Internet. The organization should consider either supplying data or subsidizing data for staff – data will be your staffs’ primary concern.
NB: Don’t allow tech tools to fail: No matter which tools they use, everyone needs to be on the same page about how these systems work, why they’re being used and who can fix them if
troubles are encountered.

9. Supercharge your communication
Teams or whole business units working remotely can quickly result in confusion and a lack of clarity. Being isolated leads to uncertainty about who to talk to on specific issues and how and
when to approach them, leading to hold-ups and delays. That’s why establishing a structure and architecture for decision making and effective communication is key.
• Be transparent
Transparency is among the essential communication skills every leader needs. Data also shows it’s the top factor when measuring employee happiness. Explain the rationale behind why certain decisions
were made and invite your employees to ask questions. Doing so can help you ensure everyone is one the same page and build a stronger foundation of trust.
• Instil a sense of purpose
Purpose can have a profound impact on individual, team, and business performance and setting a team vision is one of the top behaviours of high-performing managers.
• Focus on the important outcomes
The challenge for remote teams is they’ll be tempted to try to replicate exactly what has worked for them in a co-located setting. But what worked in the office setting won’t always work remotely—or
isn’t always necessary. The trick is to work backward—start with the outcomes you were getting in the office and modify your meetings/scrums as appropriate. It’s all about adapting to the situation
rather than sticking to a guide.
As a remote manager, you have to stop paying attention to the process and pay more attention to what things are getting done. Be very explicit with your expectations regarding the team’s
behaviour and the work that needs to be done, and above all, be supportive and empathetic.
Reiterate key messages to your team in a variety of settings, such as:
• At the start of every scrum/stand-up
• During one-on-one conversations
• On the virtual whiteboard following a team huddle
It’s incredibly important to overcommunicate as it will not only ensure the message gets through but also help solve and re-solve a lot of the challenges organizations run into from
miscommunication.

10. Your communication playbook
You also need to have a clear conversation about how the tools will be used, then document all that information in your team’s “Communication Playbook” and consider it a living, breathing
set of group norms that you should check in on together on a quarterly basis. Processes and tools that worked last year may not work for you today, or six months from now.
Include in your playbook how to train existing and new staff on the tools. Don’t just assume that people know how to operate with virtual communications — or are comfortable in that
environment. Set up test runs whenever new tech is introduced and put time aside for the team to learn to use all the features of the technologies at their disposal. Making sure your team is
familiar with the tech helps everyone to minimize disruptions and delays.
As a remote manager, you should be reactive to comments, questions, and mentions, to make sure that work doesn't get blocked or bogged—and ensure that your team is also responsive to
their notifications and requests. Create a culture of using these tools and remember this is your primary line of communication, now: you can no longer turn to the person sitting beside you.
Acknowledge that virtual communications are different — and won’t be perfect — but should still be professional and respectful of others. Be mindful that virtual communications may be
less comfortable and effective for some, and coach employees on when and how to escalate ineffective or disconcerting virtual exchanges.
Re-establish “rules of engagement”: Remote work becomes more efficient and satisfying when managers set expectations for the frequency, means, and ideal timing of communication for
their teams. People complain about meetings all the time:
• People aren't focused; distracted by email and social media
• Extroverts/senior people force ideas through for expediency
• Meetings are often badly run/managed, no agenda, no record keeping, no decisions taken
• People are unprepared, skip meetings, leave early, come late
• Hard to track next steps or progress made
This is an opportunity to fix these issues by agreeing a new set of communication rules.

11. Some additional playbook suggestions
Videoconferencing:
Remember: This is a relatively new primary tool for team communication. Some suggestion rules:
• Ensure everyone always have their video camera turned on during the meeting.
• You should actively monitor body language during group meetings.
• Increase the frequency of feedback during group meetings, prompt those who are silent.
• Monitor and resolve conflict situations quickly – can be done during the meeting or taken offline
• Ask the team to silence or turn off alerts on email and messaging apps - the ones that ding.
• If you’re sharing your screen, turn off desktop popups that preview incoming emails.
• Close your email inbox and other windows so you don’t accidentally display confidential information.
• Mute when you’re not speaking so everyone can hear better.
Instant Chat/Messaging Board:
Remember: This is a relatively new primary tool for team communication. Most teams probably used a phone app to chat pre Covid-19.
• Keep a chat window open during video meetings to give people the option of asynchronous real-time feedback, pose questions and seek guidance. Chat conversations can either be public
to all members or private to specific members.
• In some cases, a dedicated messaging channel can replace the in-office daily huddles with team members submitting their updates and identifying impediments to further work. This also
serves as input into the daily scrums as the registry of concerns that have been raised and addressed.
• Encourage teams to use the chat facility to stay up-to-date with work progress real-time by posting status for others to monitor and comment on.
• Chat can also be used for social team talk – builds team cohesion and comradery.
• Warning: Expecting quick/instant answers to text messages is increasingly being considered as bullying.

12. Tracking work and productivity
Talk to your team about productivity. If you don’t bring it up, no one will. There is going to be adjustment to day-to-day working processes,
which more people are experiencing first-hand in this climate. Do you know how much work your remote team accomplishes and at what rate?
For many managers, the answer to this question is unclear. It’s hard to know if someone is being underutilized or is not pulling their own
weight without an understanding of their productivity.
For this reason, remote managers need to establish ways to track productivity for all employees. This can include setting up metrics for how
much work is expected to be completed each day or by the end of the week. The KPI metrics you choose to evaluate the productivity of remote
employees should also be the same criteria used for in-office employees, including quality of outputs. This ensures that there are clear
expectations in place, regardless of how and where your team works.
Don’t forget about the SLA’s in the organization. Many of these are contracted with customers and suppliers and need to be met regardless.
Most customers and suppliers would expect the organization to have a Business Continuity Plan (BCP) which deals adequately with remote
service supply from your staff.
Productivity is easy to undermine, especially when working remotely. Working too much, though, can be a bigger problem, in the long run.
With no clear markers between work and home, many people fall into this trap.
Do not lose sight of the end goal. Make sure your team knows how to plan their work and set real hours, create a workspace or system that
signals when they’re working, and stick to them.

13. Team support builds a confident high performing team
At the end of each week, take a hard look at your teams' achievements and examine critically how productive and effective they were by asking these questions:
• Were all team members exposed to remote collaboration?
• Some need multiple touch points throughout the day – did they get the necessary support?
• Some required the usual tender loving care (TLC) – do they feel your care?
• Some activities require significant face times – are they capable and supported?
• Customers and suppliers will remain demanding and not always understanding – do your team know where and how to get support and help?
• Was your team a support system to your peers, customers, other team members? (and even competitors too under unusual and unnatural circumstances like these)
• Were there emotional outbursts and were these dealt with professionally and resolved?
Collaborate, share & help implement the knowledge and skills you have as a leader to help your team and others fight the same battles as your own.
Make sure your team members are helping themselves and each other with the following skills to improve their productivity and effectiveness by continuously learning and improving:
• Finding ways to get as many answers as possible on their own.
• Using face time wisely.
• Restructuring conversations.
• Becoming continuous timekeepers.
• Maintaining work etiquette even when remote.
• Learning to work independently without constant fallback support.
• Above all, monitoring/tracking their own productivity and achievements
Research shows a direct correlation between high confidence and personal/team performance. It is critical to you and your team success to get onto a winning steak as soon as possible.

14. Build a process to protect your team from distractions
Continuously switching between messages, tasks, and projects is a productivity killer and adds unnecessary stress to team members. Research has
proven that remote workers often tend to be more productive, but a key to productivity for any team, remote or co-located, is a manager who can
properly protect and prioritize the work that comes to the team. According to a one study, it takes 23 minutes and 15 seconds to get back to work after
every interruption.
Encourage team members to switch off their chat (“do not disturb”) after posting a message indicating when they are expected to be back online. As a
rule of thumb, this offline period should not exceed 1 hour. Turning off notifications and really focusing on one thing at a time is proven to be the best
way to get work done.
Building one place where all requests can come in, can be prioritized and assigned, and then tracked to completion, will streamline things significantly
and give you peace of mind that nothing’s slipping through the cracks. We recommend using an electronic Kanban workflow board:
• Visually organize the work in a shared place so you can scope the full amount at once.
• Limit work in progress by having different stages that communicate both volume in each stage and their status: Incoming, Up Next, Doing, Blocked,
etc.
• Empower your team to pace themselves and be transparent about their commitments so they can help you help them avoid overwhelm.
Most teams have a “P0/P1 alert” – when something critical has gone wrong operationally and team members are required to stop their work and give
their attention to the issue. Recommend using a screen pop-up alert assigned for these special occasions only.
You’ll know your team is thriving because they’ll be directing people to send their requests to the central intake and taking on tasks in Incoming as they
are able to, rather than responding to every little ping and ding. You’ll feel confident knowing everyone’s work is being seen and prioritized properly.

15. Increase recognition and encourage innovation
During periods of disruption, employees’ desire for being recognized for their contribution increases by about 30%, according to Gartner. Effective
recognition not only motivates the recipient but serves as a strong signal to other employees of behaviours they should emulate.
Managers previously identified employees’ work and contributions within the traditional office space, but they are now required to recognize more with
less visibility. Given the lack of visibility in a remote environment, try to improve your monitoring techniques and relationships with direct reports. Use
simple pulse surveys to ask specific questions or track output to collect data and find areas of recognition. By meeting with employees virtually and
asking what barriers they have overcome, or ways peers have helped them, you can identify elements to recognize, thank and share the
accomplishments of teams and their members.
With businesses sheltering amid high levels of uncertainty, managers and employees may understandably become more risk-averse. There’s a natural
hesitancy among employees during disruptive times to be afraid to try something new. And there is the tendency of leaders to shelve innovation until
“things normalize”.
But it’s during such times that innovation and risk-taking become even more important for employee engagement and organizational success, particularly
for high-potential (HIPO) employees, who tend to have a stronger desire for these types of opportunities. For example, ask for creative ways staff can
maintain excellent customer service with colleagues through internal communications or how to rework delivery schedules, mutually alter priorities or
use technology to provide better services through remote workers. Rework is also a major cost and time delay and is one of the highest sources of
frustration for managers and their teams – encourage the team to actively look for ways to reduce rework.
Provide opportunities to share successes and safety for potential failures. The confines of social distancing means that when employees take a risk and
succeed in improving their productivity, only a few connections can build on that success. Make an effort to highlight the value of employees’
continuing to scale their activities and ensure that any risks are worthwhile.

16. Conducting Online
Meetings

17. Manage expectations during virtual team meetings
Running and moderating a remote meeting can be challenging! Your team will experience awkward moments of silence, misunderstandings, and
interruptions. Visual cues are hard to pick up on when you’re running team meetings, especially when someone is sharing their screen.
Some common challenges of virtual team meetings are:
• Teammates hold back from speaking up or participating in the meeting because they expect others to speak for them.
• People might be on mute and scrambling to find the unmute button before saying something, whether in objection or agreement. This doesn’t seem
like much, but it could play a big part in whether or not someone participates in the conversation.
• People are distracted by what’s going on around them or by something else on their screen: they might be browsing the internet or could be having a
virtual chat on the side while the meeting is going on. This isn’t always the case, but it does happen.
Ways to overcome these challenges:
• Make a rule that video cameras must be on all the time during the meeting. This makes things more personal, and people are far more inclined to
pay attention and participate.
• Keep up the energy and pace of the meeting but ask for input or commentary if none is forthcoming.
• If someone is completely disengaged, follow up with them individually, after the meeting.
• Make a clear agenda and goal for group meetings, so everybody can come to the meeting prepared and looped into what there is to know.
Tip: Ask your team to use headsets, or a combination of headphones and built-in microphones. This can help eliminate echo and static making the
conversation feel so much more natural. Procure wireless Bluetooth headsets for your team if the budget allows.

18. Important meetings
Transition to shorter, more efficient meetings
Remote teams work more effectively with shorter meetings so teams should strive to make their meetings not just shorter in duration but more efficient overall.
The meeting agenda should be sent in advance of the call with clear objectives and desired outcomes stated so the team can come prepared and ready to work
together.
Don’t invite additional people who aren’t absolutely necessary for the meeting. If subject matter experts or other key people might be required, but don’t have to
attend the whole meeting, ask them to be “on call” i.e. available at a moment’s notice to join the call, but not required to listen to the whole meeting. They can be
busy getting on with their other work and will appreciate you for it.
Daily Scrum/Stand-up:
• Objectives: Share progress, Identify impediments, Plan the day ahead
• When: Must be at the beginning of the day/shift and must include all team members. Tip: Allow the team to agree on a time convenient for everyone.
• Duration: Extend the meeting from 15mins to 30mins to do individual check-in (5mins). Allow 10mins at end for problem solving. (Don’t allow problem solving
during 15min scrum)
• Tools: Videoconferencing, chat, virtual whiteboard
Tips:
• Make sure the virtual white board replicates the office Kanban (Scrumban) board. Make sure everyone can see progress and blockers raised.
• As the team leader, you own the backlog – making sure it works for the team and that it reflects all future work, prioritised, and use it to propose sprint
workloads.

19. Important meetings
Weekly Team Meeting/Sprint Planning:
• Objectives: Keeping the team aligned with organizational objectives and operational/project goals
• When: Schedule sprint planning weekly to agree on goals, priorities, backlog refinement, discuss impediments and split up the work.
• Duration: Meetings should be 45mins optimally, but not longer than 1 hour.
Tips:
• Assign team member prep work ahead of time and agree on what can be taken offline.
• Enlist the entire team to prepare the meeting agenda in advance.
• Assign two important roles:
o Someone to chair the meeting
o Someone to take meeting notes
• Break longer meetings into 2 meetings – e.g. planning meetings, epic/story meetings, etc
• Use the same office methodology to rank backlog items, lock-in scope and discuss ideas for process improvements/reducing complexity.
• Try to limit membership by connecting outsiders only when they are needed
• Can move to fortnightly as performance stabilises and teams grow more comfortable with working remotely.
You’ll know your team is thriving because they’ll be building meeting agendas without your “friendly reminders”, participating in lively discussions and
sharing thank yous with each other in a group setting. You’ll be assured that the team is avoiding working in silos through information sharing and having
time to remember that everyone on the team is a real, live, human being on the other side of the screen.

20. Important meetings
Weekly 1-1 check-in with team members:
• Objectives: Reading of the gauges – pressure, temperature, work in progress, backlog, completed work, issues and impediments, discussing sensitive and difficult topics
• When: Weekly, at a time convenient for both (not between critical tasks)
• Duration: Meetings should be via phone call or VC and not longer than 10mins.
Tip: Use a private virtual whiteboard to plan and keep track of work and conversations:
• To Discuss: Build an agenda all week long with a place to quickly add topics, and give each other a heads up so that you can both come to the meeting prepared.
• Ongoing: A great place to move discussion cards once they are set in motion, so there’s no forgotten work along the way.
• Growth: Put the areas of growth and goals front and centre so you can talk about performance on an on-going basis instead of just once or twice a year. Plus, it makes formalised reviews
more natural (and way less awkward).
• Discussed: Keeping a record of finished work and past discussions allows you both to track progress and celebrate wins together at review time.
Use the weekly check-in meeting to gauge how well your team is coping by asking questions about their remote working lives: How have their daily habits changed? Are they able to walk the
dog more often? How are they handling everyday disruptions when they can’t disappear to the relatively quiet of the office? What tips can they pass on to others to make working from home
easier or more productive? Share whatever news you have, even if it’s a small update or to say there’s no news to share.
You’ll know your team is thriving because they’ll be adding items to discuss to the board throughout the week and take initiative to track and follow-through on growth goals and ongoing
items listed on the board. You’ll feel in touch with their progress as well as how they are faring mentally and emotionally at work on an on-going basis.

21. Important meetings
Sprint Reviews:
• Objectives: Celebrate accomplishments and collect feedback
• When: Upon delivery of finished product
• Duration: Meetings should be 45mins optimally, but not longer than 1 hour
Tip: Don’t allow meeting to dissolve into status update – introduce customer interview videos, frontline feedback videos, etc
Tip: Keep presentation to a single person presenting, i.e. 1 presentation and 1 presenter.
Sprint Retrospective:
• Objectives: Review lessons learnt, reflect on team interaction, identify opportunities to improve
• When: Immediately after the Sprint Review if possible, with the whole team (team members who were not included in the Sprint Review must be on
the Retrospective VC)
• Duration: Meetings should be 45mins optimally, but not longer than 1 hour
Tip: Encourage the team to use the chat facility, particularly the personal chat option, if they have the perception of ‘unsafe environment’ for VC
feedback.
Tip: Use these opportunities for remote social interaction once the retrospective is complete. Structure ways for employees to have informal
conversations about non-work topics.

22. Offer encouragement and emotional support during meetings
Especially in the context of an abrupt shift to remote work, it is important for managers to acknowledge stress, listen to employees’ anxieties and concerns, and empathize with their struggles. A general
question such as “How is this remote work situation working out for you so far?” can elicit important information that you might not otherwise hear. Once you ask the question, be sure to listen carefully to the
response, and briefly restate it back to the employee, to ensure that you understood correctly. Let the employee’s stress or concerns (rather than your own) be the focus of this conversation.
Effective leaders take a two-pronged approach, both acknowledging the stress and anxiety that employees may be feeling in difficult circumstances, but also providing affirmation of their confidence in their
teams, using phrases such as “we’ve got this,” or “this is tough, but I know we can handle it,” or “let’s look for ways to use our strengths during this time.” With this support, employees are more likely to take
up the challenge with a sense of purpose and focus.
Monitor for signs of remote work burnout:
• Increased procrastination / decreasing productivity
• Feeling “alone” / difficulty reaching out to others
• Working longer or erratic hours
• Feelings of anxiety over own performance or how own performance is perceived by others
• Decreased interest in self-care (health, hygiene, fitness, etc)
Solicit Feedback
In addition to giving feedback and guidance to your employees, you should seek their input on how you’re performing. Gaining insight into how others perceive you can not only sharpen your emotional
intelligence but equip you with a growth mindset.
Research shows professionals with a growth mindset are:
• More mentally prepared to take on challenges
• Use feedback to their advantage
• Highly adept at problem-solving
• Effective at providing developmental feedback to employees
• Persistent in their pursuit of goals
By heightening your self-awareness, you can identify your weaknesses and craft a stronger leadership development plan, enabling you to become a better manager and set a positive example for your remote
team.

23. Hire and onboard new remote team members
Yes, it’s 100% possible to go through the entire hiring and onboarding process with a new employee without meeting them in person. Ideally,
even when everyone is distributed, you’d organize an onsite week to give them a chance to meet the team and build some in-person
experience with the team, but that’s not always possible. If you have new employees starting in a fully remote setting, you just need to set up a
clear structure:
• Help your new hire settle into the role
• Grow company knowledge and understanding
• Empower them with the tools, info, and resources to get up-to-speed quickly
Start off every new employee, remote or otherwise, with a 90-day plan. You and your new report can share this board privately and use it as
the map to their new environment.
You’ll know your team is thriving because your new hire will be in all the right conversations, have access to your remote team home base,
have scheduled 1:1s with their supervisor/coach and teammates, and be embraced by the larger team from day one. You’ll know exactly where
they are in the onboarding process and be confident that they aren’t just waiting for someone to tell them what to do next.

24. Return to Office

25. Provide security for employees returning to the office
The return to office decision is a critical one for senior leaders. Whatever decision is made, leadership will be criticized by staff and stakeholders. It is important for the senior leaders to devise
a return-to-work strategy based on ensuring the health and wellbeing of staff and their families, in relation to the coronavirus and you should not want people back at in the office until this
can be guaranteed.
When preparing for the eventual return of employees to the office, empower employees to make choices best suited for their needs and comfort levels. Where possible, allow employees to
decide when to return. Enable essential employees whose work requires them to return to the office to choose the hours that work best for them.
Return to Work Strategy – Develop a return to work program that focuses on the following protocols:
1. Planning: Prepare your return to work plan. This should include the following:
• Leadership team to discuss and agree the business return to work principles
• Plan to prepare your building for occupancy (facilities planning)
• Arrange to conduct a preoccupancy inspection and arrange a pre-occupancy deep cleaning program
• Train your facilities manager and cleaning teams on good hygiene matters and establish a daily cleaning schedule
• Review any service which may present a health issue and establish how you can minimize risk
• Test all emergency and life safety systems
Agree who will return to work at what stage (possibly only Facilities and IT first) and consider the following:
• Workplace distancing and space availability
• Work routines to achieve workplace distancing
• Vulnerable or at-risk staff
• Staff who have child or care responsibilities
• Travel arrangements; where possible, reduce the need for public and shared transport

26. Provide security for employees returning to the office
1. Planning (conti): Establish workspace distancing protocols based on Government regulations and consider the following:
• Staggered arrival and departure
• Building entrance and/or exit protocols
• Workspace setup and spatial (social distancing) arrangements
• Pantries, kitchens, dining rooms and any space where food is prepared and eaten
• Meetings internal
• Off-site meetings with clients and suppliers
• Security and emergency arrangements
Going back to work could trigger a range of emotions. You need to consider the consequences of increased anxiety caused by how the return
to work may lead to workplace behavioural change, e.g. aggression and/or violence. Some staff may have been struggling with anxiety,
depression and lack of motivation. Many with (or even without) existing health conditions will be reluctant to regroup until vaccines are
available.
Importantly, establish a protocol to respond to expected spikes in coronavirus outbreak in the office. This will ensure a quick response if you
need to send your team or the entire office back home and ensure you can do this effectively without disruption to customer service.

27. Provide security for employees returning to the office
2. Communicating the plan:
Management should be visible (physically or remotely) with regular team meetings to deal with problems and concerns. Human emotion,
empathy, open communication and understanding have to take the lead. Employees with fears and anxieties should be supported in order to
feel safe at work.
• Workplace distancing protocol and building cleaning arrangements • Wearing of masks
• Travel and arrival arrangements - particularly important for those who cycle
to work or use changing facilities
• Use of hand sanitisers and washing of hands
• Relaxation of carpooling/sharing program, if in place • Ill-health reporting and staff support program
• Follow Government advice on use of public transport • End of day protocols, where an alternative team may be working on site
• Working arrangements including breaks • Travel to and from client sites or external meetings
• Seating arrangements (consider partitioning requirements) • Vehicle hygiene requirements and checks
• Workstation health and hygiene requirements (reconsider hotdesking
requirements)
• Procedures to be followed for coronavirus outbreak in the office
• Eating and drinking and use of fridges for personal food • Recommendations for staff for coronavirus outbreak at home (Gov
guidelines)
• Screening on entering the workplace (symptoms and temperature check) • Procedures to be followed for Gov reinstating lockdown or office evacuation

28. Provide security for employees returning to the office
3. Implement preventative measures:
• Ensure that health and hygiene are managed and maintained by:
• Identifying key touch points in the workplace and providing appropriate sanitation stations to allow hands to be cleaned and sanitised
• Washroom cleanliness
• Determining cleaning frequencies which need to consider an initial clean of surfaces and HVAC system
• Cleaning to consider core activities and staff provided with appropriate personal protective equipment (PPE) and be visible to staff during
the working day (PPE is recommended for psychological control, rather than a safety measure)
• Ensuring statutory testing is undertaken safely
• Reviewing:
o Food preparation and server areas to ensure workspace distancing can be maintained
o Deliveries to the office and from the office
o Waste arrangements including specific arrangements for PPE worn by cleaners and facilities Staff
o Cycle to work arrangements and changing facilities where provided
• Reinforcement of workplace distancing protocols
• Conduct regular health and safety inspections and maintain a detailed logbook

29. Provide security for employees returning to the office
4. Recover the office:
The business recovery is a key stage. Leaders should monitor the effectiveness of the return to work program to ensure that it remains effective and is
supporting those who have returned to work. It can also be used to restore confidence in the business.
Home office should be supported as part of a long-term solution, where possible. Many want to hang on to their new-found work life balance – and
why not? Traffic and emissions are reduced, people have more family time, can exercise more and are less stressed. Employers must encourage
ergonomic solutions for staff home offices to avoid long-term physical health problems. The irony is that as workplace interiors have been redesigned
to feel more homely, we now need to make our homes more work-like.
The uniqueness of the current situation is that nobody has a definitive answer for how to work through the post lockdown / pre-vaccine period.
Management must engage with employees to agree a way – and be prepared to change tactics if needed. Only bring back the staff you need: Bring
people back in shifts and stagger it. Leaders need to think about which roles they absolutely need to have in the office, and plan accordingly, to reduce
the health risk to employees.
Review lessons learnt from the outbreak and ask for feedback, particularly from staff, and also customers and suppliers. Critique what you’ve learnt and
use this to continuously improve. The big losers in the next 12-18 months will be organizations that ignore corona concerns raised by their team, dismiss
home office requests and fail to consider staff anxiety. Businesses with short term views will lose out to long term strategists. Now is the time to buy
loyalty with empathy to retain your best staff.
Review and update your Business Continuity Plan. Most organisations will have had their plan activated by the outbreak so learn from this and make the
necessary improvements. If a second wave of coronavirus hits, lockdown measures will return. In this case, flexibility and business continuity
preparations are essential.

30. Provide security for employees returning to the office
The HR policies and procedures will need to be refreshed with several key considerations:
• Self-isolation: Organizations must ensure that domestic laws and guidance are taken into account when setting out rules for employees self-
isolation and payment. E.g. is it considered as sick leave? What if the staff member insists on coming to work, fearful of a further loss of pay?
• Prepare for a number of staff to stay at home: What if an employee refuses to return to work because they believe the measures in place
do not adequately protect them? The steps that can be taken are likely to depend on the basis of such refusal, which will in turn throw the
spotlight on what preventative actions, if any, the employer has taken. Self-quarantine
Finally, review what you’ve learnt from the period of time people have been working from home. What positive take-outs can be taken into
the business operation? In many ways lockdown has reconnected families and given people time to look at what’s important to them, so it
might be time to look at how teams work in a different way!

31. References
• https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/organization/our-insights/revisiting-agile-teams-after-an-abrupt-shift-to-remote?cid=other-eml-alt-mbl-
mck&hlkid=5589f6ce44d440d0b0a3121912ec187f&hctky=11330840&hdpid=e3c74ec0-4042-430c-a2b2-d64b91bf8bb9
• https://dydx.digital/remote_teams/
• https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/mckinsey-digital/our-insights/a-blueprint-for-remote-working-lessons-from-china?cid=other-eml-alt-mip-
mck&hlkid=34f94d91e7b54e539ee863ba90c22e25&hctky=11330840&hdpid=8a7d725d-49e2-4b4e-91f7-ff6a4dadb4b5
• https://hbr.org/2020/03/a-guide-to-managing-your-newly-remote-workers
• https://www.gartner.com/smarterwithgartner/early-covid-19-lessons-learned-from-employers-in-asia/
• https://www.gartner.com/smarterwithgartner/9-tips-for-managing-remote-employees/
• https://online.hbs.edu/blog/post/managing-remote-employees
• https://enterprisersproject.com/article/2020/4/9-ted-talks-managing-remote-teams
• https://blog.trello.com/how-to-manage-a-remote-team
• https://www.hotjar.com/blog/managing-remote-software-development-engineering-teams/
• https://www.talentlms.com/blog/challenges-managing-remote-team-how-overcome-them/
• https://www.roberthalf.com/blog/management-tips/how-to-manage-a-remote-team-when-it-becomes-business-critical
• https://www.forbes.com/sites/danabrownlee/2020/04/16/this-is-how-remote-teams-stay-productive/#6311599f36b7
• https://www.cio.com/article/3540010/8-expert-tips-for-remote-project-management.html?upd=1588513676994
• https://www.qualtrics.com/uk/experience-management/employee/managing-remote-teams/
• https://www.cardinus.com/insights/covid-19-hs-response/returning-to-work-after-lockdown/