Question

As an intern at a midsized company, you have been asked to submit ideas for improving remote working and managing productivity amid coronavirus outbreak. You will be attending a meeting with your supervisor in order to discuss your ideas and their implementation.

Your task: Prepare an email outlining five to ten suggestions for improving and managing productivity and remote working practice. Address your email to your direct supervisor, Ms. Yunnie Isab, at [email protected], who requested the ideas prior to the meeting.

Answer 1

Dear Sir,

As it can be noticed that with the current situation of the coronavirus outbreak, the steps followed for social distancing do not allow us to work at the office and meet with employees in person. Hence we will have to form strategies and best practices that can increase productivity working remotely. The steps for following this new work culture effectively can be:

- analysing and selecting all tools and Softwares that can help in remote working practices and limiting in-person contact. Softwares helping in video and telephonic conferences, sharing files with all in a cloud network, screen sharing, recording and replaying important messages, transferring huge files should be identified and installed by everyone.

- The goals, short term and long terms, daily weekly and monthly objectives and mission and vision of the organization should be clearly defined to the employees so that they are aware of what is expected from them even when they are not physically present at the office.

- The top executives can adopt all the practices of online tools and Softwares proactively communicating its importance and its ease. Connecting with employees personally and showing them the importance of each one's input will encourage employees to work productively from homes too.

- As in-person communication is lacking there should be openness and clarity in the work deliverables and feedbacks. The work submitted, queries, feedbacks and issues raised by employees regarding any matter should be addressed immediately for them to feel engaged and work sincerely.

- Practising digital company culture should be portrayed as an advanced and promising way of doing work and not as a stressful compulsion which will demotivate employees and make them want to start working efficiently when the work resumes with the old culture.

- Creating timelines and work schedules for tasks and having strict deadlines for employees will help the company to get work done timely and help the employees to set their day's routine accordingly keeping the urgent work as a priority.

- Working in a full-time atmosphere gets interesting also because of the interpersonal relations employees develop, they take breaks and interact with other employees, hang out with them in their free time, indulge in activities that keep them motivated and energetic. Absence of all this can make employees working from homes uninterested and lazy after a while. Hence creating a friendly and entertaining culture online is also required. Giving them some challenges and tasks and having online competitions in games and activities can make the work culture interesting and engaging.

The above steps can help in engaging employees in remote working practices and increasing productivity at the same time.