Top 3 tips for working remotely – whatever your role

Rebecca Watkins - 22 April, 2020

School Operations

Category : Blog

Top 3 tips for working remotely – whatever your role

During this time of constant change for schools and trusts, we want to support schools with practical advice for adapting to new ways of working. Becca Watkins, our Operations Executive, has put together her top 3 tips to bear in mind for working remotely

As an EdTech company, with almost a quarter of our employees already used to working remotely, we’ve adapted quite well over the past few weeks, all things considered. Many things haven’t changed – our schools and trusts can of course still access Arbor’s cloud-based Management Information System (MIS) from anywhere. And our internal systems at Arbor are no different. 

As we prepare to strap in for another few months of remote working, we’ve been reflecting on lessons we’ve learned so far and how we can keep up momentum and morale. 

Our top 3 tips for remote working

Whatever organisation you work for, whether that’s a school, trust, local authority or private company, you’re probably finding yourself working remotely or in a completely different routine now. From our experience at Arbor, we wanted to share some tips and tricks for working together in this new way. 

Bear in mind – these are not just tips for working remotely – they’re tips for working remotely during a pandemic. There’s a big difference. Situations change daily, so you should allow your outlook and mood to change too. If you take just one tip from this blog – be kind to yourself. 

My top tips for adapting to your new, virtual workplace are:

1. Keep communicating with your team
2. Find balance and remember what’s important
3. Don’t underestimate laughter

Let’s break that down…

1. Keep communicating

• Show your face!
  You may be feeling less well-kempt than usual or slightly embarrassed by the state of your room in the background, however, it’s a good idea to turn your video on for your colleagues, and for them to do the same. Remember, body language constitutes 55% of how we communicate, so it’s easy to misinterpret something someone has said if you can’t see them. Remember, you might not be seeing many human beings at the moment, so the more personal connection you have with your colleagues the better!

• Begin with hello
  Why not try starting your smaller group meetings with a moment for a personal catch-up. As we’ve said, it’s harder to tell how someone is feeling over video, so make sure you take the time to ask how your colleagues are doing and share how you are, too. It’s also a great idea to plan some non-work related catch-ups with colleagues. At Arbor, we often have “coffee & catch-ups” with different people where we have a laugh and check in to see if anyone needs any support. We’re all in this together and we’ll all need a helping hand at some point.

• Stand-up
  While adjusting your posture now and then is great, this tip is actually about checking in regularly with your team. A “stand-up” is a type of meeting where originally teams would literally stand up to keep the meeting short and sweet before people got too tired on their feet! Whether you actually stand up in front of your laptop or not, stand-ups are a great way to give a short, efficient status update to your team. We find it really useful to take 15-minutes every morning to keep each other in the loop about what we’re doing.

• Be a source of truth
  As a leader, the best response to a crisis is to be the source of truth for your employees about what is happening in the world. Transparency is strength – addressing the difficult situation, letting your team know how you’re dealing with it and how it will affect them, will reassure them that you’re representing them in the decisions you make. Even if your policies aren’t set yet – let them know it’s a working process that needs everyone’s input. James, Arbor’s CEO, has been keeping team morale up with daily updates on the developing situation for the country, and what this means for our schools and how we need to work together to adapt.

2. Find balance

• Work-life balance
  It’s tough when your home and work life start to merge into one another. But it’s important to find that divide so you can switch off when you’re not working and be really present in your home life. Work-life-balance won’t be the same for everyone – having other commitments outside of work or those you care for might mean different priorities. Continuing to re-evaluate what’s important to you will show you the balance you need to strike. Now is not the time to try to fit a mould or do what others are doing. If you can, find a new schedule that works around you – move your hours a little to give you more breathing space. Breaking just once at lunch time might not be the time off you need!

• Is it urgent? Is it important?
  As national and local factors are changing all the time, your school, trust or company will be reassessing and re-prioritising objectives and timelines regularly. Try and apply this to your personal workload too. Order your tasks by urgency and importance, so you can work efficiently on the most relevant things – see our handy chart below! 

3. Don’t underestimate laughter

Something not many companies have faced before is how to keep their employees’ morale high during a time of widespread strain. The key to this is having a strong company culture and great communication. Most importantly, and the easiest thing to introduce, you can’t underestimate the value of having a laugh together. Here are some ideas to bring a little light-hearted relief:

• Friendly competitions
  One way we’re keeping up our work relationships at Arbor is daily competitions set by our Co-Founder and CEO, James Weatherill. Every day, James sets the whole company a single challenge to post in our team Slack channel. The best have been to take a picture of your home office (check them out on twitter!), share your favourite song of all time, and one of my personal favourites – Renaissance Yourself – which shows how you would look as a Renaissance portrait (go on, try it!). It’s a very fun way of breaking the bounds of remote working and getting to know your colleagues even better. 

• Quiz time!
  Why not host a quiz for your team and/or company to play together? Quizzes can really engage a team and lift the mood by taking the mind somewhere completely different. You can play at the end of the day or during a lunch break, with a digital platform or good old fashioned pen and paper. We’ve been using Kahoot for our quizzes, great for being quick and interactive. 

Keep sharing

Remote working is a new experience for us all, and being kind and thoughtful will go a long way, whatever your role or company. So take a breath, take a pause, and remember this is temporary. How we adapt to this crisis will serve us not just right now, but in the long term as well. 

If you have any tips to add to Becca’s list, share them with us on social media using #ArborCommunity or on our Community Forum if you’re an Arbor school.

We’re running a webinar programme called “Adapting to Change: Managing Your Schools and Staff Remotely” for MAT Leaders to share strategies during lockdown and beyond. You can sign up for free by clicking the link.

To find out how to manage and report on the Coronavirus situation in Arbor, you can read our blog, or find practical advice on our Help Centre. If you’re new to Arbor, find out if Arbor MIS is for you with an online demo – get in touch at tellmemore@arbor-education.com, or give us a call on 0208 050 1028.