Can you believe it is already June? It feels like winter flashed by in the blink of an eye, spring didn’t even happen, and summer is already here!
Getting employees to be productive in the summer has always been a challenge, but can we blame them? Who else wouldn’t want to get some vitamin D and enjoy the beautiful weather?
Well as you can imagine, summer 2020 is a bit different than every other summer because of the COVID-19 pandemic. For the last few months, your company might have transitioned to a remote team and you have no plans of returning back to the office this summer, or at least until it is completely safe to be around others.
So, what does this mean for your employee productivity levels? It was challenging for your employees to be productive during the summer in previous years, so how can you keep your team productive this summer as they work remotely?
We’re here to share 6 tips so that your team is productive all summer long, no matter where they are working from!
1. Encourage employees to get outside
We know what you’re thinking: Why would we encourage employees to get outside when we need them to focus on working?
We don’t mean for your employees to get outside and spend all day by the pool. What we mean is encourage your employees to get outside for an hour each day. If your team is working from home, maybe encourage your team to get outside each morning for a walk before they sit down at their home office for the day. Or, encourage your team to get outside for an hour during their lunch break.
Anyone that is cooped up inside all day will be itching to get outside and enjoy the outdoors. By getting outside before the workday, or even during the workday, you get your fix of the outdoors so you can get back to focusing on work and being productive.
2. Work in a clean environment
It is nearly impossible to work in a crowded, messy environment. There are several studies related to workspace organization and productivity.
If your team has skipped over spring cleaning, it’s time to schedule that spring cleaning into the calendar.
When working from home, not only is it important to keep your workspace clean, but the entire home. If your home is unorganized, chances are you will be distracted by the mess.
3. Release endorphins
When working remotely, you don’t spend as much time outside of your home as compared to when you are heading into an office each day. As a result, it becomes easy to get into a slump.
One of the best ways to stay productive is by releasing endorphins. How do you do this? With exercise!
Getting outside and running in summer heat might not sound fun to your employees, but there are plenty of alternatives. Encourage your team to get a gym membership or a membership to other fitness studios such as zumba or barre. Not only is this a way for them to release endorphins, but it gives them an excuse to get outside after they have been inside working all day. If gyms aren’t open in the area you’re company works in, take advantage of all of the free online workouts happening right now!
4. Stick to a schedule
When going into an office all day, by default, you have some sort of routine. When working from home, it’s a bit different. When working from home you don’t have to wake up at your normal hour and get ready for work. If you don’t have a schedule in place, you really have no plan for the day and it’s easy to become sidetracked.
Just because your team is working from home doesn’t mean they don’t still have other things to attend to other than work. The key is to keep it balanced, just as you would if you had to commute into an office each day.
Balance your day out so you get all of your work done and still have time to pay attention to personal matters. Having a schedule will help employees to stay organized and on-track while still maintaining a work-life balance.
5. Take time for yourself
One of the biggest mistakes remote companies could make is to abandon vacation time. This is actually quite common because employers don’t see their employees coming into work each day, so they forget that employees still need a break.
Encourage your team to take vacation days every once in a while. If employees don’t have vacation time in the summer, they get an itch to slack off and this is where we see lower productivity levels.
Once your team has selected their vacation time, put it on the calendar and stick to it. This way, the entire team is aware of when other employees are out of the office.
6. Maintain good communication
One of the key elements for success of telecommuters is communication. But communication is especially important during these summer months. If you don’t have communication between team members during the summer months, it is easy for tasks to become off track.
If your team is working remotely this summer, be sure to have a way for daily communication. Many companies use Slack, an online chat platform. You should also still continue with any weekly meetings. If you didn’t have weekly meetings, it might be a good idea to implement meetings into the schedule.
During these meetings your team should go over any tasks that are outstanding or need to be completed that week. You might also want to go over any goals, to ensure everyone is on the same page. If working remotely is new to you, having virtual meetings might seem odd, but there are plenty of tools out there, such as Google Meeting or Zoom, that make meetings simple.
Have all the right tools to be a successful remote team
At Work2Live, we’re here to provide you with tools so your team can maintain a good work-life balance. When working remotely during the summer months, it could be easy to lose sight of this work-life balance.
Check out our platform to help you achieve a good work-life balance this summer.
For more tips on work-life balance and how to keep your team productive, catch up on our latest blogs!