Are you working from home due to the COVID-19 outbreak? Are you finding it a difficult change to make? Here are five tips from HackerOne CEO Marten Mickos on remote work best practice
- Increase Your Online Presence
When the organisation sees that the CEO has gone completely remote and digital, they will be ready to follow. The CEO must be present in online tools and channels, communicating proactively and engaging in timely conversations where they are happening and knowing when to bring things to video chats. This also means encouraging, praising and high-fiving people across the company.
- Bring it back to the Company’s Values, Mission and Purpose
When employees have a vision they can rally behind as a group, alignment becomes easier across time zones. Make sure you can explain in plain writing why the company exists and what it is trying to accomplish. From there, develop goals and objectives, as deep and detailed as possible.
- Cultivate Trust Across all Teams
All effective teams have trust. To foster this trust, executives must be open and authentic across channels. Secrecy, intrigues or hidden agendas will kill any effort to build internal digital trust, which all executives need in return. If you practice courteousness, diplomacy and compassion online, and the same ideals will manifest within your team.
- Develop a Digital Work Culture
When you go all digital and all remote, you must find online expressions for your culture. Jokes, high-fives, celebrations, gossip, community, family, personal interests, attention to the humans behind the professional persona - all these things need to be brought over to the digital world and given a worthy place and channel that allows for spontaneous and randomised encounters.
- Stay Digitally Connected
Use every digital tool you have available to facilitate communication. This can be Slack, group chats, digital hangouts, video conferences, email and even the phone. Create fun Slack channels where employees can spontaneously issue high-fives to each other, celebrate birthdays and milestones, and add many happy emojis. But also Be flexible and customise the set of tools that work best for your organisation.
