Tips to keep finance teams productive while working from home

Working remotely can be challenging. Without the stimulus of an office environment where people are driven by deadlines and rely on schedules, keeping your employees engaged and productive requires planning and thinking ahead. But in this article, we share useful tips on how to keep finance teams productive while working from home.

This is a time where moving forward is paramount, so being open-minded, creative and reflective can empower your team to not only adapt, but also thrive.

Here are our tips to keep finance teams productive while working from home.

UNDERSTAND THE SITUATION

Full-time remote working is different to ad-hoc remote working – it requires discipline, motivation and adaptability for a prolonged period.
Recognising that some of your employees may find remote working challenging is a positive outlook.

ALWAYS COMMUNICATE

Communicate with your employees as often as you can, just as you’d do in the office. Being remote doesn’t mean being disconnected.
Continue to catch up with your employees via daily or weekly check-ins. Find out what has worked for them and what hasn’t.
Encourage communication between your employees so that people stay connected. Endorse a reasonable amount of informal chit-chat on calls and suggest people socialise via a coffee break over video chat.
Cascade information as soon as possible to avoid an information vacuum.

EMPATHISE, SUPPORT AND REASSURE

Recommend ways for your employees to be productive at home. For example, encourage them to wake up at the same time each day, leave the TV switched off and avoid checking a personal phone.
Ensure that you are going above and beyond to provide additional support to your team – it will pay off when you’re back in the office.
Some of your employees could be working at home with children in the house or could still be home alone. Empathise with the difficulty of the situation and reassure them that you understand.
Encourage your employees to look after their wellbeing. Let them know that they’re not expected to be glued to the desk from 9 until 5 and can use their lunch breaks to get out of the house, just like in the office.

TRY TO KEEP IT BUSINESS AS USUAL

Be proactive with your team. If an employee isn’t meeting expectations, start a conversation to understand why and how you could help them going forward.
Think about how you can optimise the remote working period – be productive and forward-thinking.
Use the time to reflect on how to improve business processes for the future.

These tips about how to keep finance teams productive while working from home intend to offer workplace advice to those operating remotely during the lockdown period.