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Tag: work from home

5 Ways to Elevate Conference Room Technology

In the past few years, work environments have drastically shifted from day-to-day in-office experience with frequent in-person meetings to fully remote work, hybrid schedules and Zoom meetings. While studies have shown that remote work will remain prevalent, the new challenge is optimizing conference room technology and office spaces to create an in-person experience remotely for employees and customers.

READ — Managing a remote work team with communication and ease

A boardroom or conference room equipped with outdated technology doesn’t meet the efficiency, productivity, and sophistication of one that is integrated with the most up-to-date systems modern technology has to offer. To cater to the evolving remote and hybrid work models, it is critical that companies have a comfortable and innovative conference room that is outfitted with easy-to-use technology that boosts productivity and increases collaboration, no matter where they are located. Here are the five ways to elevate conference room technology:

1. Sound masking: Increasing privacy and productivity

Ensuring that a conference room has privacy is of the utmost importance. Sound masking reduces distractions and increases privacy through ambient sound or “white noise.” It can be implemented throughout an entire office space or in single rooms and the volume can be toggled with at any moment in time. Here’s how it works: the higher the privacy index, the more confidential the speaker’s conversation becomes. With this technology comes fewer distractions and increased productivity. Between 2006 and 2008, a laboratory study was conducted where researchers found that sound masking effectively increased speech privacy from 35% to 90%.

2. Meeting and presentation technology: A premium audiovisual experience

As technology continues to advance and more digital applications are released, delivering a premium audiovisual experience is expected. Having optimized meeting and presentation technology in the conference room captures the audience’s attention and provides room for effective communication without glitches and delays.

There are a few different ways to elevate meeting and presentation technology. The first is through an audiovisual projection system or display, which has become a powerful tool for presenting and creating strong connections for every company across all industries. Second, is a web camera with crystal clear video that allows users to deliver premium optics and life-like video calls to create the experience of sitting together in the same room. Lastly, a microphone that offers clear and highly intelligible speech captured with state-of-the-art sound quality can enhance the conferencing experience for all participants.

READ — How to build community for employees while working from home

3. Video: Perfecting the video setup

Perfecting the video setup in a conference room starts with distributed video. Multiwindow video enables single or multiple sources to be shared across multiple TVs. This technology allows for flexibility, hides all equipment and simplifies the user experience. Perfecting the video setup in a conference room so that it is easy-to-use for hybrid workers who aren’t in the office every day removes the extensive and time-consuming preparation and setup, which provides a convenient, simplified experience.

4. Interactive touch displays: The key to increasing participation

Interactive touch displays utilize touch technology to record information, deliver dynamic presentations, and provide audience engagement with a single touch of a finger. This advanced technology also connects to computers, which allows users to save any recorded information as a file directly to the connected computer. Not only does this reduce the need for an overflow of office supplies, but it also creates a richer, interactive environment.

5. Smart conference rooms: Utilizing automated technology

Smart or automized conference room technology allows users to control simple commands such as integrated room control, lighting, window shades, HVAC control, occupancy monitoring and room scheduling, centralized distribution and one-touch meetings. Integrating the technology and systems in a conference room provides a comfortable, productive and smooth experience for remote and in-office employees.

Poor technology oftentimes results in wasted time and an unpleasant experience for companies and their employees. Regardless of the conference room’s interior design, it should be equipped with technology that is easy-to-use and complements video meetings for both at-home or in-office participants.

 

Shawn HannsonShawn Hansson is CEO and founder of Logic Integration, a Colorado audiovisual and automation firm specializing in the design and installation of easy-to-use technology in homes and businesses. Since the company’s inception in 2004, Logic Integration has been recognized for numerous accolades under the leadership of Hansson. This includes recognition as a multi-year honoree of the Inc. 500/5000 “Fastest Growing Companies in the US,” a “Colorado Companies to Watch” winner, CEDIA’s “Contractor of the Year” and “Integrator of the Year” by CTA, in addition to numerous others. Logic Integration’s clients include Comcast, Dish Network, Lockheed Martin, US Army, US Air force, Denver Broncos, and Level 3 along with many Fortune 100 companies.

Guest Column: CEO of Atlas Real Estate — Is Working Remote Worth the Missed Opportunity?

I was talking to a dear friend this week about the early days of my career, and it caused my mind to turn to the topic of working from home. In my career in the real estate lending sector, my first boss was a producing branch manager. This meant that almost all his income came from being a loan officer – and then he got a little extra to also be a people manager. So, you can imagine where his focus on training me fell in his stack of priorities. That said, he was actually a fantastic boss and even became one of my closest friends.

I don’t think I can quantify how much I learned from Rob. I learned how to be a loan officer, but I also learned about leadership, management, conflict resolution, problem-solving, recruiting, retention, critical-thinking, marriage, parenting, and the list could go on. Some of this I learned from intentional training – maybe 10-15%. The rest, I learned from being around him.

READ — What role does remote work play in the future of work?

He and I were together 12 hours a day, 5 days a week. As is typical early in careers, I was working a lot. All that time we conversed on business and life. And I was learning, constantly.

It took many years to understand that what I had gained from this leader was tacit knowledge. Tacit knowledge, aka implicit knowledge, is knowledge that is difficult to express or extract, and thus more difficult to transfer to others by means of writing it down or verbalizing it. This can include personal wisdom, experience, insight, and intuition.

Tacit knowledge can’t be read in a book or put in a training manual. You cannot communicate it through a Teams meeting or on a screen. You can get it two ways. Experience and Apprenticeship. Experience takes time. Apprenticeship takes desire and commitment. You can’t avoid experience; it’s going to happen whether you choose to learn from it or not. You also can’t accelerate experience very much. Apprenticeship is the way you gain tacit knowledge without experiencing it yourself and you get it through regular, sustained, contact. This is where career trajectories diverge.

READ — Managing a remote work team with communication and ease

By choosing to not engage in the office setting, professionals today, particularly young professionals, are missing out on their single most valuable professional and career development opportunity. You likely won’t have many epiphanies in your day-to-day work, but what does happen is that over time, the rhythms of the office and your different interactions with people start to shape you and inform how you think and act. My manager and I almost never spoke directly about leadership, but to this day I catch myself doing things the way he would have done them. This wasn’t dictated or commanded, but simply absorbed.

We all know this is a loaded topic right now and becomes even more loaded across different generations. There are companies making sweeping statements on both sides of the work-from-home debate, and at my own company, we are choosing to maintain a more flexible approach.

But one thing I know for certain, if early in my career I had opted to work remotely on a regular basis, it would have delayed my professional development significantly and I would not be the leader I am today. While this may or may not be true for everyone, it is probably worth at least a little contemplation.

Here’s the thing. Yes, it’s easier to work from home for a lot of us. No getting ready. No commute. No finding a parking spot. No packing a lunch. No traffic.

But easy is very rarely better.

 

Tony JulianelleTony is the CEO of Atlas Real Estate, a full-service real estate company specializing in investment services, property management, institutional acquisitions, and buy/sell brokerage. He is a successful organizational leader with more than 20 years in real estate and financial services who is passionate about developing people and serving customers. He is a consultant to various business partners, focusing on strategy, execution, and bottom-line business results. Tony is an articulate, concise and professional communicator as well as a gifted people motivator. He is regularly referenced and featured in local and national media for leadership, finance, and real estate insights.

Digital Nomads: How to Run a Business from Anywhere

The world is fast turning away from the physical location of work. Many people have resigned from or adjusted jobs that should have ordinarily needed their presence in the office or workplace. Since the coronavirus-era and the lockdown accompanying it, many organizations and individuals are moving toward work from home.

Working from home, of course, offers a different reality and process than working in an office. You must know the proper procedures before you consider becoming a “digital nomad” or working from home. If you don’t set up the appropriate process, you might get a little bit frustrated or shocked by the expectations.

Make use of online services

Several online platforms have even made it easier for one to work from anywhere in the world. These platforms have reduced the strenuous and prolonged procedure a person would have taken on their journey of becoming a digital nomad. Popular online platforms can include service-based options, like Upwork and Fiverr. Other platforms like Air Corporate offer company registration services that make running business for nomads very easy and convenient. One can register and manage their businesses on these platforms effectively, even better than someone running a business physically.

Steps to Becoming a Digital Nomad

1. Make the Decision, and Set Up

This is the first step you would take before becoming a successful digital nomad. Before you set up: what kind of business do you want to do, and what do you have passion for doing? As mentioned earlier, there are service-based and buying-and-selling businesses. These are the two major types of business online. You have to think about what you have an interest in and a sustainable company that relates. If you have a skill you believe you are good at and is marketable, then begin to set it all up through the different online platforms and bid for jobs.

2. Finance and Management

This is important in your process of becoming a successful digital nomad, especially if you are starting an eCommerce business. You would need money to set up the business properly, get your goods, and run ads for the company. If there are no ads or enough content marketing, there could be less buyers or users of your platform. Thus, you need to have good knowledge of how to manage and grow your finances. Even as a service-based digital nomad, you need funds to get a workspace, get a laptop, and other gadgets; you also need funds to take care of emergencies that could potentially add risk to your service delivery.

3. Marketing and Broadcasting

Marketing is very important for your business. You should begin to announce to people — families, friends, housemates, old pals, and anybody about your plans to start the business you want to create. This is necessary, because it would be easier for you to garner many clients and buyers before you start. These people you inform will tell other people who would, in turn, broadcast to other people, and your business will continue to expand. Whether you are a product or service-based business, you must start promoting business early. You do this through various means; you do not only rely on word-of-mouth, there are other means, including digital ads.

4. Equipment and Products

After deciding on what type of online business you want to do from anywhere, you should also consider the best places to get your gear and products. If it is the e-commerce you choose, you should consider getting the most affordable products and perfect ones that would attract your customers’ attention or make them buy from you.

You will also have to build good customer service, a website with a chatbot, and pay attention to what’s in demand. You should consider to survey your customers and employees, get powerful survey insights, and close the feedback loop to create delightful experiences. In order to do that, consider a survey tool. In addition to this, you should also consider getting gadgets that would give you optimal performance and deliver outstanding results, for instance: a laptop, phone, and even a camera of good quality toward running your daily business and service operations. If your business is multilingual, you will need translation equipment as well, such as interpreting booths for effective interpretation.

Get Ready

In this modern time, you can choose to do business from anywhere of your choice. This is a time when it is no longer required to have a definite and physical location in order to run your business. People order goods online as well as demand for services online too. However, it would help if you took care to make the right plans and follow the suitable methods to avoid limitations and hurdles while building the business.

5 Tips for Building a Strong Company Culture in a Hybrid Work Environment

As businesses continue to transition to hybrid working environments, maintaining a strong company culture amongst both remote and office-based employees will be a critical component in achieving long-term success.

Throughout the pandemic, our company learned so much about what it means to be an engaged and efficient workforce. We started having virtual weekly huddles, communicating on Slack, doing Zoom calls from one room to another, and hosting virtual happy hours and trivia. But all those things are material. What allowed us to grow and maintain a strong work culture even though we all haven’t been in-person every single-day was a shared company purpose, teamwork, measurement, respect for each other and trust. Here are five tips for building a consistent and engaging company culture in a hybrid work environment.

Establish Core Values

A company culture should be defined by its people, and not tied to a physical workplace. Developing core values with your employees that are easy to embrace will drive success and fulfilment in life, regardless of your working model. Determine what drives them, what drives you, and what needs to be done in order to succeed. For us, “Together, We Win” seems to be everyone’s favorite core value. It embodies all of our other values, as well as our purpose, and keeps everyone engaged.

Measure Productivity not Office Hours

Gone are the days when direct reports include notifying or asking permission to leave early or for a doctor’s appointment. Instead of counting office hours, measure productivity. Let employees determine when and how they want to do their work, as long as the work is getting done well and according to the company’s overall strategy.

Measure everything that you do as a company, versus office hours. Establish and measure annual and quarterly goals, and both internal and client-facing metrics. Create an accountability chart that distills down job descriptions to very simple boxes, such as with an employee’s name, title, and three-to-seven bullet points outlining their role and responsibilities. The accountability chart allows people to know where to go for what and keeps the ownership of specific tasks with one person.

Make the Office a Great Place to Work

We’ve learned by now that many businesses can work remotely; so it’s up to the employer to make the office a great place to work, socialize, and collaborate to encourage employees to come back when it’s safe to do so. The onus is on the company and is no longer on the employee. Create a flexible, creative, and fun office space.

Instead of putting a policy in place that outlines how many days an employee must be in the office and the number of hours, allow each department to determine what works best for them. Mirror the work from home experience as much as possible toward the physical office space, and it will help entice employees to return.

Encourage True Vacation Time

The work from home and hybrid work culture may lead to less (true) vacation time, so finding ways to encourage and perhaps require time off is going to be the next hurdle for employers. A burnt-out team is never a good thing, and more work doesn’t produce more results. It will be important for employers to encourage staff to take personal time, vacation time, and time for self-therapy.

Employees usually don’t come up with an “a-ha” moment or big work idea while staring at their email in front of their computer. Great ideas normally come on a bike ride, while climbing a mountain, taking a walk on the beach, through meditation, or activities outside the office. In general, employers need to be more compassionate, understanding, supportive, and facilitate and encourage productivity through celebration of great achievements.

Respect the Work Force

Respect both your permanent and remote employees and their work/life setup. We learned that we need to involve our remote teammates even more than we thought now that we’ve worked in their shoes. There is no such thing as office-based and remote employees anymore. All employees need to be equally engaged, encouraged, and included. Everyone can work in a hybrid environment and feel connected, but it requires opening up remote options to engage employees, whether it’s a Zoom meeting to see people on screen more often or a virtual event. And regardless of where your employees are located, it’s vital more now than ever for company leaders to be accessible, approachable, and visible to all employees.

 

KoriCovrigaruKori Covrigaru is the Co-Founder and CEO of PlanOmatic, the biggest and fastest provider of Property Insights and marketing services for the single-family rental industry nationwide.

Back to school chaos: 4 steps to take now to support working parents

As of the writing of this article, politicians and health officials at all levels agree on one thing: COVID-19 is going to get worse before the year ends. Meanwhile, school districts are making plans to resume teaching children in the fall in a wide array of formats, including: in-person classroom, online instruction, “hybrid” of live and online, compressed and variable scheduling, etc.

Some staff may refuse to return to work in schools open for live instruction out of fear of infection. If an outbreak occurs in a classroom, a school may suddenly close and require children stay home. With COVID-19 in control, working parents face a chaotic reality when their children return to school. 

Are you drafting plans right now to support working parents who must balance their children and their jobs?

Sticking your head in the sand, or taking a “Not my problem” attitude is perfectly legal and even tempting. However, being rigid or avoiding reality will likely have serious consequences including workplace chaos and the unnecessary loss of good employees.

For employers who value employees and wish to support them through this chaos, as well as increase the ability to keep the business on track, a radically flexible approach may be needed to manage these inevitable upcoming challenges.

Consider these four steps:

Step 1: Acknowledge the situation and engage employees in innovating solutions.

Survey employees in a discussion over what challenges they face with childcare and children returning to school.

Educate employees about the challenges and solicit an “all hands on deck” attitude.

Coach employees to be solution-oriented and facilitate problem-solving sessions for them to draft their own personal plan for managing and creating back-up plans. Some employees may be stressed out about their circumstances and the uncertainty imposed on them by COVID-19; they may benefit from fresh perspectives on their circumstances.

Engage in “war games” planning to identify and address “What if” scenarios such as, “What if half of our workforce cannot report to work due to school/ childcare closures?”

Step 2: Evaluate current practices and focus on what matters.

Adjust expectations of how work is done—focus on outcomes instead of “face time” hours. (Caution: non-exempt employees must be paid for all hours worked.)

Revisit attendance and leave request policies—allow for legitimate “last minute” requests due to school closures and avoid punitive consequences.

Ask all employees to collaborate and be more agile in responding to the disruption associated with the pandemic.

Evaluate benefits to provide more support to working parents and employees facing other challenges due to COVID-19.

Temporarily suspend “nice to do” but non-essential workplace activities; employees who are spending time on non-essential projects or committees may be needed elsewhere.

Explore how work can be completed in new ways. Empower employees to identify and eliminate wasteful actions, and define work-arounds to focus on core functions.

Identify skills in staff from other teams that can be temporarily reassigned to gaps created by a colleague who had to stay home due to school closure.

Create on-demand pools with the help of temporary staffing firms.

If a 9 – 5 pm, Monday – Friday schedule won’t work for employees, try a schedule that includes evenings as well as Saturdays and Sundays?

Evaluate vacation planning and other planned absences—it may be necessary to disallow them for months at a time. Though not popular, such a step may be one of the temporary shared sacrifices necessary to successfully navigate the chaos of COVID-19 this fall.

Step 3: Offer options to employees and build community.

Offer scheduling flexibility for working parents to plan for known and adjust for unknown challenges: compressed workweeks, intermittent schedules, transition to part-time status.

Build community among employees and guide them to share resources, ideas and creatively get work done while also supporting each other in new ways, such as:

Job sharing: employees with similar job tasks are “paired up” to allow each to take time off.

Task pooling: job tasks are assigned to a “pool” of employees who rotate through and complete work that must be done while having time to meet personal needs.

Cross-training: learning new skills and tasks may be necessary to enable employees to flex and cover for colleagues who must take time off.

Technology makes remote work a possibility for more jobs than employers think; engage employees in remote work planning and drafting new procedures to ensure accountability.

Empower managers to innovate and address evolving conditions, as well as encouraging them to build community with employees facing childcare challengers and devise “win-win” solutions.

Step 4: Maintain compliance and seek advice.

Various laws may impact your plans and require attention to ensure compliance.

  • FFCRA: mandated paid leave for certain employees may be required due to school district closures.
  • FLSA: avoid wage and hour violations for non-exempt hourly employees as well as exempt/ salaried employees who may take leave or work intermittent schedules.
  • Evolving laws: new federal legislation may be passed to amend FFCRA to expand benefits or possibly provide new entitlements; local laws may be passed that impose new requirements on employers.
  • Seek assistance from trusted advisors to navigate legal complexities and inform your strategic plans.

How to build community for employees while working from home

In today’s technological world, everything is connected. So why does it feel like we are so disconnected? COVID-19 has fast-tracked businesses to launch and enable remote workforces, yet they are discovering the challenges that come from the lack of physical presence in an office. In the absence of face to face interactions, we tend to lose out on nonverbal communication that manifests naturally in regular meetings.

And when it comes to leading teams remotely, meetings are everything these days. Yet they pose their own sets of challenges that prompt us as leaders to ask: how can meetings be more efficient, engaging and build comradery in the age of remote working?

Find a meeting pace that’s right for the team

It’s always healthy to evaluate re-occurring meetings on the calendar; you may not even need them anymore. Look for looming pain points in meetings and ask for feedback from your team. If you’re not sure how valuable a meeting is, don’t hesitate to ask the group. Try looking for any of the following red flags:

  • Redundancies in meeting topic or format,
  • Meetings that report on similar activities and
  • Team member participation.

Finally, find a closing statement to use as your outro on virtual meetings. Nothing is more awkward than a remote call that doesn’t end with an action item or on a positive note. Look for those opportunities to ‘end on a high note’ (even during difficult calls) and know when to end meetings so they don’t drag on.

Try asking questions like: Does anyone have any blockers? Are there any questions on what we discussed today? To end the meeting say something like, “That’s a wrap,” or find a silly codeword the group responds to. “Pinecone” is our codeword for “I’m done, the next person can go” and it works well during roundtable status calls.

Inject meeting spontaneity

If you have the option to bring a spontaneity to meetings, do it. There will always be rewards. When leading meetings where multiple people talk, it can be a challenge to determine the order in which people gave their updates. To bring spontaneity to meetings, try using a random spinning wheel to choose the next person who will speak. This will add excitement to the meetings and make it feel like a gameshow. This works well for meetings that require everyone to participate. Using a system like this helps remove tension, adds fun to the meeting and encourages participation.

Share the silly things

Make sure each of your teams has a chat group dedicated to non-work-related topics. There needs to be a safe space to share funny memes, random news articles, or just to vent. It’s all about building comradery and community. Be sure that, as a leader, you’re an active member in the chat. Failing to engage won’t help others feel comfortable sharing silly things. In the office, have you ever taken a break with co-workers to go outside, vent or grab a coffee? The silly chat room is akin to that.

Another option is to set up a meeting during the week where teams can ‘gather’ remotely for a virtual lunch break. Make it optional to attend, but you may be surprised at how many teammates dial in for non-work-related bonding time. This gesture is important for employees who are extra lonely while being stuck indoors.

The value of one-on-one meetings

One-on-one meetings are nothing new to the workforce, yet we’re not always leveraging these meetings to their full potential. Set aside a specific time to meet with individuals and do your best not to cancel these meetings in lieu of more pressing matters, as it sends a signal to the employee that their issues are not as important.

Create a safe space for employees to share openly. It’s also opportune to receive feedback on how you are as a leader. The employee shouldn’t feel as if the time is dedicated to performance evaluations, but rather, it is a space to talk about concerns, growth opportunities or simply catch up. These discussions need to be left to the discretion of the employee. It is theirs to own and run. Plus, you should welcome non work-related chat.

There’s not a set meeting strategy that will work with every team, but you must be flexible and discover what works and what doesn’t. It takes effort to build strong bonds remotely, but you just must commit to it. Try one of these recommendations and see how it is received by your team. While many of us are working remotely, it doesn’t mean that meetings need to be secluded from the sense of community we all crave right now.