How to Create a Remote Work Policy and Leverage Rituals to Manage Extreme Emotions
Manager TLDR: Issue 14
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Hey fellow managers and leaders,
We hope you’re staying safe and healthy. We’ll keep this email short because we know how valuable your energy and attention are during this season 🙏.
Based on our research and conversations with leaders, here are four things you should know these days:
🏠 How to transition your team to remote work
TLDR: In light of the world’s current situation, we asked a panel of remote work experts for their tips on how to transition your team to working from home. Some tips include:
- Document all your processes in a wiki or employee handbook.
- Trust your remote employees to do their work.
- Schedule regular check-ins and team meetings.
🌎 Remote work policies from 10 remote-first companies around the world
TLDR: If your team is transitioning to remote work, it’s a good idea to create a remote work policy that everyone in the company can read and access at any moment. Here are 3 of the 6 topics you can cover in that document:
- Availability: are employees expected to work between a specified time?
- Communication: how are teams expected to make and record decisions?
- Security: what security measures should be taken when working remotely?
🤝 Why remote work makes disagreement hard – and how to do it anyway – Zapier
TLDR: Disagreement is a good thing, but when you don’t see a person’s facial expressions, communication can be easily misinterpreted. Here are 3 tips to make these conversations a bit easier:
- Don’t wait. Disagreement is a lot easier when you don’t have to turn the ship all the way around.
- Schedule a 10-minute video call. This will help you avoid misinterpretations.
- Choose a “safe word” that your team can use when a project is going off the rails.
🗣 The restorative power of ritual – Harvard Business Review
TLDR: Rituals are a powerful human mechanism for managing extreme emotions and stress, and we should be leaning on them now. Here are our top 3 takeaways from this article:
- Idiosyncratic rituals can restore your sense of control.
- Rituals don’t have to happen organically; you can artificially insert them into your life.
- You should leverage technology to recreate and invent new team rituals (for instance, starting all your meetings with an icebreaker).