COVID-19: A Quick Start Guide to Remote Work and Collaboration

The coronavirus outbreak is disrupting business hours, supply chains, trade shows, and conferences. And it will continue to disrupt many other aspects of life and work as long as uncertainty about its spread continues.

It has forced companies to cancel travel plans and require individuals to work from home. Effective remote work requires a rethinking of collaboration strategies. Sustained remote work, which we are now facing for who knows how long, requires different tactics than occasional telecommuting.

Daniel W. Rasmus, author of “Management by Design” and “Listening to the Future,” writing in eWEEK, has compiled a list of 10 actions to take when considering remote work:

No. 1: Decide on which collaboration tools to use.
No. 2: Simplify the collaboration toolset.
No. 3: Select which tools to use to support which processes.
No. 4: Get to know your collaboration apps.
No. 5: Document escalation and conflict remediation approaches.
No. 6: Decide where content will go.
No. 7: Use automated scheduling.
No. 8: Create a community of practice around collaboration.
No. 9: Rethink key performance indicators.
No. 10: Rewards.

Each of these decisions should preferably be made in advance regardless of whether employees are currently working from home or not. When something unexpected happens, like a quick shift to remote work as we are now seeing, emergence may be too costly a choice for short term productivity. This is the time for design. Focusing on the design of work also offers employees a sense of control in a situation that can seem out of control. And it keeps people talking with purpose rather than speculation driven by uncertainty.

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