As of the writing of this post, my husband and I are working from home, while taking turns caring for our infant. To slow the spread of the virus, many consulting companies have implemented a companywide telework policy. Work is being completed (even as parents/guardians negotiate children) and meetings are still happening virtually.
Prior to COVID-19, all of our staff commuted to the office by public transit, commuter bus, or biking, which are all tools in the toolbox for travel demand management. An important tool, which most company’s neglect is telework. Nspiregreen does allow people to work from home (or wherever) as long as work is being completed in a timely manner. However, with everyone working remotely, we put some additional measures in place to make sure we are communicating and working effectively as a team.
Virtual Morning Stand-Ups: Every morning we have a 30-minute video conference to go through the projects, what needs to be completed, and people can express where they need help. It’s a nice check-in so a person that has some capacity, can help get work with upcoming deadlines completed.
Video Conference Call: In addition to the morning stand-up, our staff has been having smaller video conference calls as needed to be able to work together. This includes the ability to share screens and work on documents together.
Project Management System: We have a companywide system for managing projects and tasks. With telework, we are leaning into it more including using more of the functions. There are plenty of systems. Ours allows a person to assign a task, subtasks, due dates, add relevant files, and have others be subscribed for the updates. There is also a chat feature for each task and each project.
Weekly logs: Each staff person outlines their goals for the week and anticipated deadlines. This allows us to see what the plan on working on for the week and provide guidance if priorities need to shift.
Chat: Even when in the office, we used chat platform to communicate. It is helpful when asking a non-urgent question so you don't interrupt someone who may be focusing on something else.
What are some tools or processes do you have in place while people telework?