Remote working tips  

As part of our COVID-19 updates, we thought we’d take a closer look at remote working this week with some tips to help you and your colleagues through.  

Whether you’re a small business owner or part of a team in a larger company, with many now working from home, health and wellbeing is top of the agenda. We’re so used to hearing this in the workplace environment but to transfer that to working at home in this current situation, is quite different. Here’s a few pointers that can help with some daily processes.  

Check in on the team 

While you would usually be seeing your colleagues each day in the workplace, what’s important, is to maintain a collaborative approach and not to forget the team element of your business.  

What’s worth noting is results of the Wundamail State of Remote Work 2019 , where 74% of remote employees said they felt more productive. However, 42% of remote workers said they lacked “support daily,” while 55% felt their managers weren’t aware of their daily responsibilities. 

With this in mind, it’s important to ensure you have regular catch up meetings with your remote team to maintain that support. By now, you’ll have likely held some video conferencing catch up meetings with staff and clients. While this is important to ensure projects are staying on track, it’s also a time to share the lighter side of life with your colleagues to help morale.   

Perhaps have a virtual trip to the pub one evening as you might usually do after a busy week. Ask what colleagues have done at the weekend to get some sense of normality and to share ideas between the team to help provide different ways to spend time. So, whether that’s a quiz, a group jigsaw, virtual game of monopoly or mindfulness podcasts. All these can be beneficial for morale for staff to hear fun and creative ways of spending time outside of work. That’s important to remember as the lines between work and home can become blurred. Especially in this situation as ‘staying in is the new going out’.   

By default, you’ll also feel closer to colleagues at each meeting as you get a glimpse of the homes of each member of the team.  

Restructure or upskill team members 

Now may be a good time to review the team structure. If you have particular projects that could be worked on but never had the time to progress before, can you utilise a member of staff elsewhere during this period? This could not only be a project that can benefit the company but can take care of an employee’s wellbeing by involving them in a key task.  

Can you recommend webinars for team members to watch? You could rotate the responsibility and ask for the person who watches it to share insight with the rest of the team. Again, a task that you so often want to do, but don’t have the time. As a regular exercise this provides a focus for individuals but also by presenting back findings to the team, you’ve created a process that benefits that whole company.  

The new normal 

As we mentioned in a previous update, there is almost nothing individual companies can do to change the current outcome. So, keep yourself, your colleagues, customers and suppliers safe and your business operating.  

Make a note of what’s been successful during this time of remote working and what could be done better. Keep these ideas and see how they can form part of any new processes once we’ve worked our way through this difficult time of social distancing.  

Financial accounts  

For business owners, keep in touch with us during this time. If you’re unsure about any actions you need to take over the next few months, we can help you the best way we can. We may not have all the answers, but it’s important to keep in touch and talk through any issues as we may be able to provide peace of mind or advise on HMRC links to relevant resources. 

At McKenzies, we have appropriate procedures in place to ensure all essential accounting services such as Payroll and VAT will be delivered. Our team of accountants are also working remotely but we’re still at the end of the line or on email should you have any questions regarding your financial accounts during this time.