Virtual business
With businesses having to have made such a significant shift with the onset of the coronavirus crisis having a virtual business now seems set to be the norm. Have businesses that previously wouldn’t have entertained virtual employees have now had no choice but to embrace it. In this article I will share some of the key factors which should be considered setting up a virtual business working space.
Your people
Firstly, in primary consideration needs to be your people. In going from a collaborative working environment, to working independently from home have or having to work within social distancing constraints can have an impact. Consider the current situation and the impact that has on individuals it’s highly likely to have caused significant levels of anxiety worry and fear. As a business owner you need to take into consideration the fact that your people right now may be suffering from fear of working alone.
Here are some suggestions to assist you in dealing with the impact of being alone and suffering from fear:
- Use chat forums to engage your team in daily conversation.
- Set up periods in the day where the team can come together for shared breaks using video.
- Have one of the team arrange a weekly virtual get together.
- It could be a good idea to have made sure your team have something from their office and the business such as their favourite mug.
Technology
One thing is clear with the virtual business is that today there is no shortage of technology to support the virtual workspace. From chat forums to video conferencing and shared working spaces in the cloud, you can create high levels of connectivity through technology.
Execution
There are three areas which we need to focus on to ensure efficiency and productivity in execution in your virtual business. Management, systemisation and planning are all key in making sure your business can run efficiently in the virtual working space.
Management is key and making sure the team have clarity in what it is they need to do and achieve. One key area in management is understanding where micromanagement may be required. Micromanagement is often misunderstood in its context. When delivered appropriately micromanagement increases competence and confidence in your virtual business. These are two key areas in delivering high levels of efficiency. Essentially, if you micromanage somebody to a level where they have competence and confidence you will empower them in their role.
Systemisation is the second area to focus on in terms of creating efficiencies in the virtual working space. The following are a selection of very simple systems which you can introduce to create high levels of efficiency.
1. Have the daily huddle. At the beginning of each day bring the team together virtually in order to discuss what needs to happen by close of play.
2. Planning tomorrow at the end of each day. Create the habit with all your people at the end of each day they plan in detail what they will achieve tomorrow. Incidentally, this isn’t a list of things to do, this is a list of things to achieve.
3. Have a management meeting. At the beginning of the week have a meeting with the team to discuss the overall progression of goals and projects currently underway.
4.Have a LION meeting. Towards the end of the week have a LION meeting (last week, issues, opportunities and next week) this meeting focuses your team on what they set out to achieve, any challenges they faced, opportunities uncovered and clarity on what they aim to achieve next week. It’s a great meeting to create high levels of ownership.
Empower your people
One thing that is clear in a virtual business is that for those of you who feel you are the superheroes of your business or have an open-door policy that will no longer work. In order to empower your people, you must give them responsibility and accountability, essentially, they must take ownership of their role. If this is something you struggle with, you may find this article useful.
Asking great questions is the best way to empower your people in your virtual business. This will require you to know which questions to answer and when. Essentially you need to focus on two types of questions, learning questions and judging questions. Judging questions such as asking why will only create an emotive response. Asking a why question promotes an emotive response and often results in blame excuse and denial.
Conversely asking learning questions encourages stimulation to think about the problem, what answer they are looking for and how to ask the question. By virtue of asking a learning question you do have to take a moment to think about what it is you need to ask. The learning opportunity is also about determining when a question needs to be asked and when a question needs to be answered. When asking a learning question three key factors should include, they are; the question is future based; time bound; details orientated.
Summary
I firmly believe working in virtual business environment in some shape or form is here to stay. As they say virtue is the new norm. It may be your employees will work from home for a period each week which in fact may increase productivity. It may be that travel doesn’t become quite so critical and that we start to use video conferencing more heavily. It maybe we question the rationality behind having office space.
One thing is really clear and that is as a result of the coronavirus crisis there is a strong likelihood that businesses will come out of this stronger and potentially with greater productivity than when they entered.
If you’d like to know more book onto any of the business support webinars which are being run complementary for business owners with a virtual business CLICK HERE.
Alternatively book an hour of Pro Bono coaching to discuss in detail how you can pivot your business right now BOOK HERE.
