Transcription
How to translate a command to remote work. Recently, I watched a report from a very respected American concert company, and the measurements of employee efficiency on remote work have shown a catastrophic situation to date. Employee efficiency since they started working from home, after all these months, all this time since the beginning of the pandemic, has dropped to forty percent. This is a colossal low level, and naturally, all managers, leaders, and economists are grasping at their heads to somehow find a solution to this problem. There are several principles that allow managing employees remotely so that they work very effectively. Watch this video to the end, and at the end, I will tell you what software we use to achieve this. The main reason why efficiency has dropped on remote work is very simple: managers are used to managing. In most cases, they manage their subordinates based on the principle that he sits somewhere in the middle or in a separate office, comes out, and looks at what is happening there. He is used to managing when he sees employees with his eyes; he gauges how much they are straining or not straining, what they are busy with now, and he is used to giving orders right and left or, conversely, not touching them if he sees that they are engrossed in work. Do you understand, like a conductor who doesn't use a score but simply relies on what is happening? "Cut it finer, I'll salt it, in seven minutes the meat will be more tender." Of course, such a system or approach cannot work when people go on remote work. He simply doesn't see what they are doing, and moreover, what is even more terrible is that with such an approach to which the manager has accustomed his subordinates, his subordinates have become accustomed to it. They are used to the fact that the next move will be dictated by the manager, that he will give them some push, that he will indicate some priority to them, and if this does not happen, they simply sit and do nothing. And this is the main reason: a manager who does not know how to manage correctly has no idea how to manage people correctly and copes by common sense and some natural observation. As soon as the ability to observe disappears, his ability to lead people disappears.
The first method is weekly plans and daily plans. Of course, if an employee does not have a plan for the week, if there is no specific list of tasks that he must complete, then the manager will have to put in a lot of effort. He will have to literally stand behind him, pushing him. This is wrong. The correct state of affairs is when each employee begins his work week by creating a plan for that week. And yes, of course, he may not foresee everything in this plan, he may forget something, and something unexpected may come up. But if there is at least this foundation, it already ensures a certain productivity reserve. Therefore, it is necessary to ensure that each employee has a plan that is approved by the manager at the beginning of the week. This plan is focused on achieving certain results, achieving goals, closing certain projects. If such a plan exists, it allows the manager not to stand behind the employee but simply to check from time to time how the plan is progressing. It also allows the employee himself to use his working time more effectively and not wait for another push from the manager, but simply to start working on the next task. An important point here is that the employee himself creates his own plan at the beginning of the week, that is, he himself makes a decision about what he will do, and the manager then only approves it. "Great, he drew up a plan, I approve it." Why is this important? Because people like to do what they have decided; they do it with greater willingness. A plan created by the employee himself will be executed with much more pleasure, and it will require less energy and effort to control what he is doing. Well, and ultimately, when we create a plan, it gives a surge of energy. This applies not only to work but even to personal life, in relation to personal achievements, sports, hobbies, and so on. If you have a plan, if you know what you want to achieve and what tasks you are going to complete, it usually gives strength, it gives energy. If you have felt such a surge of energy while planning yourself, give this video a like.
The second principle is pre-planned regular coordination with subordinates. If you have a team of subordinates, you must meet with them at least once a week to review and approve their plans, and preferably a short coordination once a day to simply provide an update, find out how the plan is progressing, what difficulties exist, and if necessary, make some changes immediately, coordinate. In general, make sure that this plan is up-to-date. These meetings are vital; they must be held constantly, preferably planned in advance so that subordinates can also schedule in their plan when they will be at these meetings, at what time. Well, and considering that we are talking about remote work, of course, such meetings are held via Zoom. There is an important life hack here: in my company, it is a mandatory requirement that all participants in such coordinations, such meetings, are obliged to turn on their cameras. This is very important. You know, even in well-organized companies, we have tried to hold meetings and coordinations without cameras turned on, and it's just awful what people don't do during these coordinations, what they don't participate in. Therefore, an included camera is mandatory, and a video recording of all coordinations is mandatory so that you can rewind and check later what was said before and what tasks were set, whether there were any mistakes. This is very disciplined. If you don't know how to conduct weekly and daily coordination, well, then I recommend you take my free master class on management tools. In this master class, you will learn what management tools to use for remote work, how they interact with each other, how this can be applied in your business. If you don't know, register for my free master class. Two hours, and you will know. The link is below this video. Go and register.
The third important principle is control. The fact is that people get distracted. The fact is that working at home is relaxing. There are many factors that are absent in the office but are present at home. They distract: the refrigerator, the TV, children, relatives, wife, household chores, neighbors, friends, anything. This is normal because when a person has always worked in the office and starts working at home, their loved ones and those around them do not have the right attitude towards it. They think, "Dad is home, which means he's not at work." Let's tug on his sleeve and let's play with him, something like that. That is, when people work at home, they have too many distractions, and you need to somehow counteract this. The only effective way that I know of, which we use in our company, is to control what a person is doing at the moment. Well, ultimately, when he works for you, you pay him for some working hours, for some working time, for some volume of tasks. Therefore, you are definitely entitled to control what you are paying for, what he is doing during this working time, whether he is doing these tasks. What's scary is that we use software for this called Time Doctor. This is not the only program; there are others like it. This program simply records time, takes screenshots of the person's screen from time to time, the employee himself enters data about what task he is currently working on, plus it takes screenshots. That is, time tracking is carried out simultaneously. This is useful for the manager, and it is useful for the employee, and the screen is recorded simultaneously. For every employee in our company, using Time Doctor is a mandatory requirement. I can tell you from experience: if you do not use such a program, your people will be doing anything but work, and you will then wonder, "How so?" You understand, he works the same number of hours, but the result is several times less. Install Time Doctor, control what your remote employees are actually doing while working from home. Even this single element of control will increase efficiency.