{"id":28337,"date":"2020-03-26T20:43:38","date_gmt":"2020-03-26T20:43:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/futurelab.digitalmachine.co.nz\/blog\/what-can-a-business-do-in-isolation-when-they-cant-work-remotely\/"},"modified":"2020-03-26T20:43:38","modified_gmt":"2020-03-26T20:43:38","slug":"what-can-a-business-do-in-isolation-when-they-cant-work-remotely","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/futurelab.digitalmachine.co.nz\/nz\/blog\/what-can-a-business-do-in-isolation-when-they-cant-work-remotely\/","title":{"rendered":"What can a business do in isolation when they can\u2019t work remotely"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

In a previous post, before we found out about New Zealand lockdown, I wrote a few ideas on how businesses can adapt in these tough times<\/a>. That, however, had a couple of flaws. Firstly, the lockdown itself. Half of the ideas disappear when you can\u2019t leave the house. Secondly \u2013 remote work. Some industries just cannot work remotely (e.g. construction).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yesterday I volunteered to help one construction company and we\u2019re trying to figure out what they can do while in lockdown. We\u2019re still figuring it out and I\u2019m still learning how the construction works and what can be done. You\u2019ll probably think \u201cwhy would I do it \u2013 in digital space surely you\u2019re busy enough\u201d. And that\u2019s true, yes we are busy. However, we\u2019re all in this together and there are no exceptions. One of us fails and they drag down 20 others. Sooner or later it will affect me. I strongly believe that every New Zealand business that is not heavily affected, no matter how well or not so well they\u2019re doing right now, should help out others. And I\u2019m not talking money. I\u2019m talking about knowledge and time. Because domino always breaks with one small piece only.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Back to the construction company. I\u2019m going to use rounded data for ease of calculation but you can adapt it to yourself. Let\u2019s say you have 10 staff and you cannot do anything for 4 weeks. That is 80 hours a day, 400 hours a week, 1600 hours in full lockdown (as long as it doesn’t extend). You can easily calculate how much productivity is gone. I\u2019m not going to get into huge dollar values because that\u2019s not the point. Let\u2019s focus on productivity. There are 10 smart people at their houses unable to do anything. But are they?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What can your employees do?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Let\u2019s focus on processes. I\u2019m probably the least qualified to put strong processes in any business since I know my own business has flaws. But there is no business in the world without issues in processes, documentation, admin name it. That\u2019s why here are the options. You can take the government grant, pay the rest out of your own pocket and pray for the best. Or you can suck it up and make it work. Here\u2019s how.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Start with the survey. It\u2019s as simple as that \u2013 one person can come up with a solution. 10 people can potentially come up with 10 solutions. Use survey monkey<\/a> and ask your employees a few questions. What is your company you doing well and what you don\u2019t do so well. Make sure that questions are very clear e.g.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thinking about everyday admin work you have to do, what do you think we can do to reduce the time we spend on it?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Don\u2019t be afraid of asking any questions, there will always be difficult answers for you. Straight up ask \u201cwhat did your previous company do better\u201d. As a business owner, you\u2019re limited only to the knowledge in your own backyard but most of your employees will have a range of experience from different companies and even maybe from different industries. Learn from it and use it to your advantage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Collect the answers and put them together in an easy to analyse format. Then pick up something that you can improve. Hard to imagine? Here\u2019s an example.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let\u2019s say you\u2019ll get answers that there\u2019s always a mess in the files. Call MBIE and ask them whether one of your employees can go alone and pick up some files from your business and take it home. I can\u2019t see why not. Get them to sort them in the next week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How about miscommunication between teams? Create small teams of your employees, e.g. 3, 3 and 4 people and ask them to meet over Zoom or Skype for 2 days in a row (everyone has a smartphone these days so it shouldn’t be a problem). Ask them to come up with some ideas on how the communication process can be improved. Give them a deadline e.g. 2 days. The next day, create a group video conference of 10 people and ask them to present their ideas to the team. Then discuss the results and come up with a solution. This method can solve quite a lot of organizational processes. One important note though is a clear plan of discussion. Make sure that each group has 1 moderator that is responsible for the discussion and makes sure that everyone is focused on the topic. Other topics can be discussed another day. Video discussion can be difficult for people who have no experience with it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are a lot of things that an employee can do at home. It could be 160 of wasted hours or 160 of opportunity hours that will place your business ahead of the competition. Like New Zealand prime minister said \u2013 this is not holidays. Let\u2019s make sure we use it right.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What if I really, really don’t have anything to give them to do<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

So what if your employees really can\u2019t come up with anything, and you can\u2019t come up with anything. Get them to learn something new! But set KPIs. If it\u2019s a new online course \u2013 ask them to bring you a certificate. If they don\u2019t see any opportunity \u2013 ask them to teach someone in your team something. For instance, someone in your company knows CAD better than others. Why not setup a 2h daily meeting with that employee teaching other employees their skills. It\u2019s beneficial both ways. When I trained Taekwon-Do, no matter what rank you were you always trained the ranks below you because repeating something that you already knew makes you much better at it. Especially if someone questions something that you never thought about.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What about business owners themselves?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s employees but what about you? When I consult companies about improving their processes and digitising their manual work I always say \u201cI come to you as 1 year old. You have 45 minutes to make me an adult in your industry\u201d. What I mean by that is that I want to hear in a very easy and quick way everything that you do. After that, I can be devil\u2019s advocate and not only find holes in processes and find solutions on how you can fix them, but I\u2019ll also question many things that maybe you never questioned before.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What I\u2019m asking from you \u2013 find yourself a friend. You have friends on Linkedin, you have your wife, other friends \u2013 connect with them. Tell them how your day at work looks like, what you do every day, what needs to be done at work and what processes you and your employees follow. Let them ask stupid questions \u2013 out of those stupid questions the solutions usually come. Maybe no one ever questioned before why you do something in a specific way \u2013 everyone just followed your lead. Spend some time with them, even video-meet every day. And most importantly \u2013 return the favour. Be that friend to another business.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A lot of businesses out there have this unique opportunity that the universe has given them to pick up some stuff that they never have time for. Here\u2019s is an opportunity to spend some time and clean up some folders, cleanup some records, books, processes, methods, anything really. And barely anything requires you being at the office. Everything, however, requires your employees’ help. So make the most of it, ask them to participate, let\u2019s turn this time into productive time, let\u2019s make something good and let\u2019s put New Zealand on the World\u2019s map as a country that went into Isolation early, avoided the worst of the pandemic and got out smarter, better prepared and much more productive. Let\u2019s fight this together.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In a previous post, before we found out about New Zealand lockdown, I wrote a few ideas on how businesses can adapt in these tough times. That, however, had a couple of flaws. Firstly, the lockdown itself. Half of the ideas disappear when you can\u2019t leave the house. Secondly \u2013 remote work. Some industries just Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":28338,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":""},"categories":[229],"tags":[239,244,245],"yoast_head":"\nWhat can a business do in isolation when they can\u2019t work remotely - futurelab<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Here's a few ideas on how construction companies can use their employees' time to their advantage during New Zealand COVID-19 lockdown.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"What can a business do in isolation when they can\u2019t work remotely - futurelab\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Here's a few ideas on how construction companies can use their employees' time to their advantage during New Zealand COVID-19 lockdown.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/futurelab.digitalmachine.co.nz\/nz\/blog\/what-can-a-business-do-in-isolation-when-they-cant-work-remotely\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"futurelab\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2020-03-26T20:43:38+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/futurelab.digitalmachine.co.nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/productivity-in-lockdown.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1900\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"811\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"futurelab\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"futurelab\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"7 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/futurelab.digitalmachine.co.nz\/nz\/blog\/what-can-a-business-do-in-isolation-when-they-cant-work-remotely\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/futurelab.digitalmachine.co.nz\/nz\/blog\/what-can-a-business-do-in-isolation-when-they-cant-work-remotely\/\",\"name\":\"What can a business do in isolation when they can\u2019t work remotely - 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