How to Keep a Team Mindset in Work-From-Home Mode

It is really remarkable and inspiring how quickly companies have pivoted to today’s “now normal” way of doing business. Above everything else, leaders have immediately embraced regular communications with employees, which is proving to be the key to highly functioning and successful teams. While daily access to their bosses was not the norm pre-COVID, it has become so important and welcome to employees as they work from home in these uncertain times.

The Female Quotient hosted an Equality Lounge on April 21st. One of the panels discussed How to Keep a Team Mindset in Work-From-Home Mode, where our panelists shared how they keep teams connected, foster continued performance, and support emotional well-being. 

I was joined on this panel by four amazing leaders:

• Pam Kaufman, President, ViacomCBS Consumer Products
• Alia Lamborghini, VP, Client Sales & Strategy, Verizon Media
• Jessica Bartlett, VP of People, Braze
• Caroline Rhodes, VP Corporate Relations, Diageo North America

During our discussion, we identified useful tips on how to lead teams during this moment of crisis, all of which have one thing in common: communication. The first important step is for each leader to acknowledge with their team that we are now living in challenging times and that each member of the team will need to pivot to make working from home successful. Other steps include:

1. Adapt to each employee’s different schedule for when they’re available and for when they prefer to receive calls or messages
2. Ensure everyone feels connected and do regular check-ins, ideally every day – it’s important for all employees to have a connection with the leader and with the team
3. Check in with clients and partners to see how they’re doing
4. Rely on technology to its fullest capacity, as needed to meet your team’s needs
5. Keep your company’s and/or team’s culture alive
6. Hold town halls or similar types of meetings to show that leadership is visible and available
7. Understand each employee’s needs and the challenges they’re facing 
8. Zoom is great for meetings, but sometimes a one-on-one phone call can make a big difference 

While we all know these are unprecedented times and it’s not entirely business as usual, there are some practices teams have adopted that are helping them to be productive and get their work done. These involve:

• Learning to be more flexible
• Helping teams think about what the future looks like, particularly when their pre-COVID work is not relevant at the present time
• Beginning to work on how to shape the future by spending 50% of their time on the now and 50% on what the future looks like, which inspires the team to think differently now
• Making sure that those in the supply chain who must come to work feel safe
• Re-evaluating everything now

There is consensus that when we return to work post-COVID, many of our businesses will not be same as they were pre-COVID. In fact, many of the ways in which we are performing our jobs and conducting our businesses now are worth continuing when we return to work, such as:

• Shine a light on diversity and inclusion or the gaps will widen
• Maintain the human face and empathetic side of leadership
• Add a little extra imagination to what we do
• Share more of the personal to keep people working more tightly as a team
• Re-think work schedules based on each team member’s needs in order to help balance their lives

Pam Kaufman ended our session with an inspiration reminder she keeps on her desk: It’s not always about what you know, it’s about how you lead and show up. I couldn't agree more.