AUSTIN, Texas — Travis and Williamson Counties issued “Stay Home, Work Safe” orders on Tuesday, meaning you might find yourself cooped up and trying to stay productive at your job over the next few weeks.
Moe Vela, the chief transparency officer at Transparent Business, said this is a critical time for ensuring that productivity stays high, while trust is maintained.
“It's important for both employers and employees right now to kind of go back to square one and recognize that these are anxious and unsettling times for both sides,” he said on FaceTime. “I just think these tips hopefully will help both employers and employees to feel a little bit at ease, a little bit more comfortable and go back to that fundamental trust that's necessary between an employer and employee.”
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These are Vela’s tips:
- Create a routine and make this your new normal. Self-discipline is required and set real work hours.
- Establish boundaries between work and personal life, create a designated workspace and remember to practice self-care (that doesn’t include social media) but get your work done.
- Constant communication with your colleagues and managers. Important that communication remains strong if not stronger.
- Loyalty is key, it fosters trust. And remember: your employer is worried about productivity and efficiency, so do your part to mitigate that concern.
- When appropriate and feasible, offer to do video chats instead of phone calls. Nothing will ever replace the value of face-to-face interactions.
- Make yourself aware of software tools and solutions that might make remote work more effective and suggest that your employer implement them.
- Focus on the positives: no commute, better work/life balance and the comfort of home, and use that positive attitude to work diligently.
- Whether through software or just through updates, keep your employer updated on your work product.
- Employers, use the resources in the marketplace like videoconferencing and remote workforce monitoring and coordinating software to mitigate the risks of a remote workforce.
- Above all, participate in the act of transparency. It’s always the best way to go.
“There is positive that will come from this,” Vela said. “We all come out of this stronger. I really believe that. And I really do hope that the result of this is that we do come out of this with permanent remote workforce situations because life is so short. And if we can learn to work remotely and still have the levels of productivity and efficiencies that's required of government workforces and private sector workforces, just think the work-life balance will be better for all of us.”
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