Importance of Gauging and Maintaining Remote Team Health

Many companies and teams therein, are encountering what it means to work fully remote.  Companies have applied work from home (WFH) benefits for a variety of reasons such as WFH Fridays, WFH to accommodate home needs, and WFH for those who live a distance from the office, to name a few. When the coronavirus pandemic thrust itself into the human condition, it required drastic work-related measures.  One such measure is having full teams work from home. 

As companies are navigating unchartered territories with this virus, many are navigating what it means to provide WFH options. With working from home has become the new normal and with work not slowing down for many, how do you ensure the mental health and well-being of team employees?  

As employees work from home, many are stressed by the isolation from co-workers, friends, and extended family. Add to this, being forced into close quarters with spouses and children on a continuous basis adds further anxiety and stress. As past routines are disrupted and new routines are established, this causes physical and mental strain on team members.

With all of this isolation and change, it is more important than ever to gauge and maintain team health.  As a leader, what are some practical tips that you can do to help team members maintain their well-being? The answer revolves around experimenting with a variety of options.  What might work for one team may not work for others. The key is to get started, include some continuous activities, and some impromptu activities all focused on team health. Here are some ideas.      

Getting started

• Initiate and continually gauge the health of the team. This could be in the form of morning check-ins or online pulse surveys (e.g., 1-10 on how you are feeling). This helps you gauge when team health is a concern on not. Depending on what you learn, there may be continuous and impromptu things you can do. 

 Continuous

• Periodically ask the team via brainstorming ideas from the team as to what they need to maintain team health.  Soliciting ideas from them makes the team feel that you care.  
• Have virtual yoga mornings.  This can be initiated by either a professional yoga instructor or one of the team members that enjoys a leadership opportunity. Similarly, this could be a virtual walking morning.
• Provide flexibility in work hours.  As spouses and children are within the remote office (aka, home), flexible hours help relieve stress from juggling family schedules
• Set boundaries on work schedule. As the house becomes the “office”, it can be harder to escape the office and ‘shut off’. Ensure there are work hour boundaries set so team members feel they have relief.  
• Recommend employees connect with one other team member every day in a face-to-face manner via video conferencing.  This helps team members feel connected to one another in a visual manner.

 Impromptu

• Periodically apply a Wellness weekend.  This is effectively a long weekend where team members have Friday off to give them time to unwind beyond the normal 2-day weekend.
• Send care packages to team members. These packages do not have to be extensive and should be focused on highlighting appreciation.  This surprise also makes for a way to break the monotony of everyday life.

Optimizing Sandwich-making to feed the Hungry

Over the past two months, my family made 200 sandwiches each week for the hungry who were impacted due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Outside of the New York/New Jersey area in the US, the Boston area is the next hardest hit by the coronavirus.  Many people in the underserved community lost their jobs and their ability to earn income. As the US doesn’t provide the same level of support as most European countries, there are many lacking food security. This is where my family wanted to help. The idea of helping the hungry was really the brainchild of my wife, through one of her friends. I am merely a cog to ensure the manufacturing of the sandwiches are optimized. 

When we started to make sandwiches, I immediately wanted a manufacturing line with the least number of bottlenecks to optimize the speed of making sandwiches. Sounds a bit geeky?  Yeah, that's who I am, that's what I do.  Per the illustration, we created 5 stations.

• Station 1 is where multiple bags of bread was opened up. 
• Station 2 is where scoops of egg salad are placed into pieces of bread. 
• Station 3 is where the scoop of egg salad is spread across the bread and a top piece is added to form a sandwich.
• Station 4 is where the sandwich is cut. 
• Station 5 is where the sandwiches are stacked into trays.

In the first increment of the process, I opened the bags of bread in station 1 and put the scoop of egg salad on the bread in station 2.  In station 3, my younger daughter spread the egg salad and pieced the sandwich together. In station 4, my older daughter cut the sandwich and in station 5, my wife put the sandwiches in the tray, sealed the trays when they were filled, and staged the next tray.

After reflecting on how we did in the first increment, I realized that I may be the bottleneck as I had to open bags of bread in station 1, scoop egg salad in station 2, and pass that to station 3 where my daughter would sometimes be waiting.  For the next increment (i.e., the next week), we adapted a little bit for better flow.  This time my wife opened up the bags of bread in station 1, and I then could focus my effort in station 2.  This improvement helped reduce the overall time by 10% to create the 200 sandwiches. 

Upon approaching the third increment (i.e., the third week), I recognized with the adaption during the second increment, the bottleneck moved to station 3 where the spreading occurred which left the sandwich cutter in station 4 occasionally waiting.  For the third increment, not only would I scoop the egg salad onto the bread in station 2, I would occasionally spread it when I saw station 4 low on sandwiches to cut.  This helped us optimize flow and reduce the overall delivery time by another 8% by identifying bottlenecks and addressing wait states.

While it is an exercise in optimizing flow which gets my geeky side excited, overall it is really about feeding the underserved community during the COVID-19 pandemic. I’m proud of my wife and family for having the motivation and charitable spirit of making sandwiches that helps feed the many hungry families.  

To learn more about optimizing flow for faster delivery, visit Value Flow Quality at: https://www.emergn.com/articles/3-guiding-principles. 

"How often do I touch my face?" Observation Game

It's time to play the "How often do I touch my face?" observation game. Stand (or sit) still for 10 minutes. Count how many times you touch your own nose, mouth, or eyes in 10 minutes. Why play the game? It can be more important than you think. 

Scientists believe that COVID-19 mainly spreads through droplets when a person sneezes. When those droplets land on surfaces or objects, and a person touches those objects and then touches their own nose, mouth or eyes, you could catch it.

Many studies have shown that people touch their face (e.g., nose, mouth, and eyes) much more frequently than they think. An article entitled "How often do people touch their face - and how is this related to Coronavirus?" shares many studies on surprisingly how often we touch our face. Studies are on thing. More importantly is for you to be aware of how much you touch your own nose, mouth or eyes through this game. You'll be surprised.

The best way to play it is to record yourself sitting or standing for 10 minutes. Then review the recording and observe how many times you touch your nose, mouth, or eyes. Generally, this game is a good way to become aware of how often you touch your face. It can make you aware of your face touching habits to improve your hand movements for public speaking, acting, and in this case for your health.