How can you maintain a positive work culture through “home office” times?

In this context leadership is specially relevant. Here are some recommendations so you can maintain a close connection with your team members and help them stay positive:

• Understand each person’s reality. It is essential to get to know the personal / family context of each employee, for example, those who live by themselves may feel more isolated. Today’s technological advancements can allow a sense of closeness with your team through videoconference tools. For those that live with other members of their family and are confronting new working dynamics flexibility is key.
• Drive Interaction. Working remotely implicates less constant interaction with your colleagues and less personal conversations other than those related to work. Use messaging applications to enable personal conversations with teammates. You may find it valuable to create conversational spaces among colleagues to discuss recent news, share experiences and possible challenges they may be facing.
• Consume trustworthy information. News about COVID-19 are all over the place but not all sources should be trusted. Social and other informal media channels may share non verified news causing misinformation and stress in the population. Recommend your employees to find information from trusted sources such as government channels or the WHO (World Health Organization) and to limit their news consumption time as well. The recommendation is to find a short period of time during the day to get informed. Overconsuming news about the pandemic may lead to anxiety. The point is not to avoid the situation but there is no benefit on compulsive news consumption.
• Good habits. Motivate your employees to maintain a daily routine. For example:
  • Wake up and have breakfast at the same time every day.
  • Short period Resting. Five minutes for every thirty minutes of work as an example.
  • One activity at a time to avoid distractions.
  • Prepare your workspace in a comfortable well lighted space.
  • Respect the work schedule and find balance.
  • No TV or music, if it‘s a distracter.

Finally, there are many other ways in which we can reduce stress. Encourage your team to do some exercise, learn new things, spend quality time with their family or pet and relax with any other hobby they may have at home.