Experienced Remote Professionals, Time to Step Up and Help!

12 days ago, my neighbor/friend, Wendy, a very capable dance professor at a prestigious local university, found out via email she had to transition all her classes to an online format. Let that sink in - all her DANCE classes need to be delivered virtually for the remainder of this semester. She had exactly 48 hours’ notice to make it happen. Wendy has never taught online, never used video conferencing platforms or moderated an online forum. She's never even attended a webinar and she's not technically inclined. The university emailed Wendy a Zoom login, gave her a 45-min online tutorial then left her on her own to figure it out. She's understandably terrified. And she's not alone.

Millions of people across the world who never expected (nor had an interest) in working remotely are now thrust into working from home whether they want to or not. Workplace shutdowns have created an unprecedented influx of remote workers and they aren't all happy to be part of the club. To top it off, many organizations had no plan in place, nor were they equipped technically or work process-wise to accommodate this situation. Thus, they are in various states of chaos right now, scrambling to manage this evolving situation as their newly remote workforce is left hanging in the wind.

Let's be clear. This is NOT the time to discuss NORMAL work from home stuff with these remote work newbies. Maybe in a few weeks when this feels more normal, but now we need to help them figure out how to execute on their work responsibilities remotely so we can help mitigate the long-term damage to our organizations, our teams and ourselves. It's time for experienced remote professionals to step up and show our newbie remote colleagues the way.

There is no time to set up thoughtful policies and procedure that can be rolled out in some organized fashion. This is the time for crisis management to determine the best ways forward given the realities facing you and your team. Get the basics taken care of using your systems and work processes that are already established. It's imperative you get your team calmed down and refocused, that you re-prioritize work assignments to suit what's currently possible and assign work tasks to those best capable of executing them today. You need to make sure you are taking care of the business-critical stuff first.

Once things are stable, THEN go back, assess the damage and implement better policies and process. Leave the de-briefs, lessons learned and root cause analysis for later. Help your people get back to business today by applying your remote work knowledge for the benefit of those around you.

Luckily, when push comes to shove, people are pretty resilient and when forced to do so by circumstances beyond their control, many rise to the occasion. Wendy had me living next door. She knows remote work is my life, so she asked for my help. I'm coaching her on the basics, helping her to get an initial plan in place and teaching her best practices for managing her group online as I also teach her how to navigate and practice with her technology. That's the best way we experienced remote professionals can contribute right now - step up and offer our services to coach colleagues, team members and even your clients. Share your remote work knowledge, systems and experience.

This doesn't mean building more webinars and online courses. In these days of social distancing, Wendy needs to see my face (even if it's on a video chat platform). She wants to pose her questions to another human and admit she's feeling overwhelmed. If someone you know has found themselves working remotely for the very first time, make a point of checking in to see how they are. Help them out. Be patient. Answer their questions and show compassion when they admit that #remotework isn't wasn't part of their plan.