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For self-motivated individuals, working from home may seem like an ideal situation to get more done. It has its benefits – like saving time spent on commuting or not getting distracted with co-workers’ conversations. For those who are on the other side of the spectrum, who love the social elements of showing up at work, may find the change hard. They may feel isolated or even left out. The 24-hour disinfection program announced by the UAE government as a precaution from widespread of Covid-19, has made companies manage their operations and teams remotely. At least in all non-essential sectors and those sectors that can work remotely.

This unprecedented change has also brought several challenges to leaders across the board such as team leaders, managers, heads of the department and such. In our previous blog post, we shared ideas on how I has been managing a completely a remote team for several years. If you missed it, check it out here –

Leading a Productive Team Remotely

In this blog, we will be zooming in further and taking a look on key changes leaders can make now as their teams begin to adapt to an alternative work arrangement.

Motivate your Team

This may seem like the obvious thing to do. Yet, understanding different people get motivated differently is the key. At the beginning of this article we said self-motivated people will love working from home as they will get more hours to do their work, be able to stay focused and be motivated to keep going no matter what.

Those who find the alternative work arrangement a hindrance will certainly need more interaction, more check-ins and trials before finding their groove to work remotely.

(Re)Establish Team Goals

The first quarter of the year is behind us and while much of the goal setting for the year must be already in place, the environment now demands altering those. So, as you move to a remote setting, it is important to take the time to re-establish the goals and prioritise them.

Communicate

Communicating is the essence of working remotely. Replicating the regular team meetings online and adding a few more may be the way to go. Your team may be having a lot of meetings already and so you may want to consolidate them to keep the communication effective and impactful. Communicate the renewed goals and priority list to the team and across the organisations. Adding in a few “water cooler” conversations either using a Whatsapp group or a Zoom call are just as important and impact the day to day productivity as well. This can help vastly reduce the feeling of overwhelm amongst the employees.

Encourage Creative Problem Solving

When the team is remote, an employee may sit with an assumption that hurdles in a job need to be crossed over alone. Leaders must set the roadmap for solving problems that arise from work tasks and how the team can work together to resolve issues.

Collaboration

Now more than ever, collaboration amongst cross functional teams or within the team is pertinent.  There are a range of digital tools available to collaborate. Perhaps, your organisation has been using some of these tools already.  Keeping it simple and limiting it to 1 or 2 applications for collaboration is helpful to avoid communication falling through the gaps. Effective collaboration also translates in to each member sharing responsibilities for a common goal and sharing experience of achieving it together.

Staying Focused

As a leader of a team, it is hard not to succumb in daily (or routine) challenges. Build the trust and share accountability within your team for projects. This will allow you the flexibility and time on hand to stay focused on your role.

As Simon Sinek says, leaders are not responsible for achieving the results, but for creating an environment in which their people can achieve the results.

With time on hand the leader can effectively use that to check-in on the team and have one-on-one conversations. Keeping promises and honouring requests is a critical aspect of managing remote team. The usual meet and greet or small talks in the hallway is not happening anymore and therefore effective communication to take place.

Team’s Priorities and Work Hours

When a change happens, and after you have re-established the team’s goals, the leader has to keep a close eye on what is the team busy with. Small asks can slip in and employees who like to help out may say yes and end up working overtime. Working from home in a regional or a multinational roles also means being available on calls beyond office hours. This may result in employees burning out fast. Inform your team that this is important to you as the team lead and for the overall productivity too.

Measuring Impact

As the teams go remote, micro managing them with watching their log in and log out times is simply silly and time consuming. Monitoring teams that are in different time zones or are working in shifts may not be productive at all. As Andrew Hedges, Engineering Manager from Zapier says, “You get what you measure. Measure impact. It can be a little fuzzy to measure, but the benefits far outweigh the ambiguity. Engineers feel empowered to focus on the problems at hand rather than watching the clock to make sure they’re clocking enough hours.”

With remote setting, administrative tasks may get in the way of overall productivity. Outsourcing repetitive tasks go a long way to alleviate employees of overtime and stay focused on their jobs.

Virtual Team Building Activities

On the Internet, there are scores of activities that you can find for virtual team building. Also, of-late on LinkedIn you may find employees posting photos of their screens while being on team calls showcasing how they had a team breakfast session to how they played video games online.  While this may be brushed off as a fad, it is important.  We can share from our experience of managing teams for over a decade. Virtual coffee breaks, team huddles in virtual environment, WhatsApp chat and the likes keeps us going.

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Everyone has at some point in their career visited a bustling office for an interview or a meeting, or perhaps you even work at such an office? The focal point of the office and the face that every visitor meets is that of the receptionist. That smiling person, usually a female, that greets the new arrivals, offers them a seat and a refreshing glass of water or cup of coffee whilst you sit and wait for your scheduled meeting.

2020 changed the way most of us work, we went from sitting in an office all day every day to working remotely, from home. 2021 has arrived and left many companies thinking "Do we actually need our employees to sit in the office all day every day?", the answer is of course no! 2020 has shown the world that working remotely isn't just for the Googles and all the other tech companies operating out of Silicon Valley, it is for all.

In this exciting technological era, some of the more prominent roles of the past have understandably changed and historically revered roles such as the receptionist are declining in their current guise. Don't get me wrong, humans should still talk to other humans, yet the role of the receptionist is being repurposed, upcycled and improved.

Surely that physical presence is required to meet your visitors I hear you cry! Well, the answer to that is another question. How many visitors are you actually physically receiving at your office at the moment? Or over the past 6 months for that matter? Probably none, or very few.

Face to face meetings have become a thing of the past. We no longer have to fly thousands of miles, all the while polluting our planet, to sign that paperwork or to meet with your number one client. Now we do not hesitate to pull up Zoom onto our screen and send out an invite, that number one client can see and hear you just as clearing as if you are in the same room, all powered by technology.

There is no reason why your receptionist and administration support cannot operate in the same way.

If you consider the true cost of employing someone to take your calls from recruitment, desks, PC's, medicals, holidays etc. it's no wonder that most small to medium companies or solopreneurs wouldn't even consider having a centralised point of contact for their inbound calls. Times have changed and today's version of the humble receptionist is anything but humble, they are experience and multifunctional virtual assistants who can handle multiple roles. Furthermore, the landline can be redirected, all administration tasks can be managed virtually and all for a fraction of the cost of having a full-time employee in your office.

Give it some thought......is the role of the receptionist as we knew it rapidly becoming extinct?

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I recently came across a very interesting article written by Mr. Prakash Iyer, former MD of Kimberly-Clark Lever, regarding the Choluteca Bridge. The article talks about the 484-meter-long bridge over the river Choluteca in Honduras, Central America, which is a region notorious for storms and hurricanes. A firm was contracted to build a strong, solid bridge that would be able to withstand the powerful forces of nature. As such the bridge was built and turned out to be a modern-day marvel of design and engineering and was subsequently opened to the public in 1998.

In October of that same year Hurricane Mitch hit Honduras. There was torrential rain and the river swelled and flooded the entire region. There was so much destruction but through it all only the Choluteca bridge remained unaffected. However, there was a problem, though the bridge was intact the road leading to it and away from it was destroyed and most importantly the flooding forced the river Choluteca to change course. It created a new channel and now flowed beside the bridge. This once beautiful and wonderous structure of engineering was now a bridge over nothing and going nowhere.

The COVID – 19 pandemic has completely transformed the way we live, work and communicate and one of the most important things it has brought to the attention of every person is that the notion that Built to Last is now obsolete and needs to be reconsidered. Businesses, from large to the small to medium enterprises need be adapt and innovate their businesses to navigate these troubled times.

We have listed out our top 4 tips to help you navigate your way through:

Think Back:

We are now facing situations that we had never really given any thought to. A company’s ability to survive will be hinged on its ability to adapt and go forward. Keep in mind the Darwinian rules, only the fittest and the most adaptable will survive. Look back on all the current and pending projects and determine if they are meeting objectives to boost your business during the pandemic. This will give you an accurate perspective on what is the status of the project as of today and what can be restricted to suit the future.

Think Across:

Work toward building an online community or being involved in a community that shares ideas, knowledge and information. Keep in mind that these communities should be a two-way street so what you give is what you will get. You can work this to be across your industry or community depending on what would suit your business better.

Think Growth:

The scales of profit and loss have been a delicate balance for businesses for decades and will continue to be. However, profitable and foresighted investments could not only support you during the good times but will also act as a cushion to ease the fall in difficult times. Businesses could consider taking interruption insurance, a tool that may not be able to cover this emergency but will keep you prepared for the next time you experience such economic loss. Also consider shifting your sales strategy online and this will provide you a two-sided benefit, it will allow you to grow your business while also ensuring that your business is prepared for any future emergency/ crisis.

Think Ahead:

Having identified the area where you have the ability to grow and reap the profits, it is essential to focus your energy on these tasks. Consider outsourcing certain departments of your company like administration and Human Resources to an outsource business support services company, to ensure you are able to keep on track with your business’s growth while saving on employment cost and increasing your bottom line.

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As the markets are becoming more competitive, outsourcing different processes can be very beneficial. In the present scenario, many businesses prefer outsourcing secretarial services for better management. An in-house secretarial team can cost you higher but outsourcing will also help you save on resources.

Outsourced secretiral services are need of an hour where companies need assistance to complete certain areas of the business. These services involve all the secretarial jobs involved.

Let us find out the advantages of Outsourced Secretarial Services.

●      Law conformity

Maintaining law compliance is very important for business. This can only be done perfectly when the secretarial requirements are outsourced to an agency. An agency offering such services will have immense experience in this aspect. In fact, the service provider will also have a better understanding of the dynamic laws. This expertise will be used aptly for a company.

●      Focusing on business activities

As mentioned earlier, different industries have compliance rules that a company should follow. Based on the compliance requirements, a secretarial service will take care of such requirements with its experience. A company is relieved from its responsibilities and can easily focus on the other profit-making activities. Hence, a company will be able to channelize its resources in business development.

●      Cost-effective measures

As mentioned earlier, hiring a team of secretaries costs a company way more than outsourcing. Maintaining a team will also require a list of resources to be maintained. From payroll to taxes and employee benefits to allowances, companies face many expenses. The best way to save on such resources and make the process more cost-effective is to outsource your requirements. The service will be a fee-based venture without any compromise with the quality of secretarial responsibilities. Outsourced secretarial services work on cost-effective measures ensuring the work completed on time and under cost.

●      No politics or personnel drawbacks

An office team is always vulnerable to politics and personnel drama. These unnecessary events will not bring anything good for your company. This is where Outsourced Secretarial Services have the best benefits. The agencies offering such services are immune or unaware of office politics and will be able to serve unbiased. Hence, the quality of business operations will be better.

●      Reliable

There is no space for favoring a particular segment of the workforce when you have opted for outsourcing secretarial requirements. In fact, impartial service will be provided in exchange for a fee. Hence, these services are reliable and even for all employees in the workforce. The agency work on uniformity and transparency. So you can be confident of getting the best work.

●      Fewer errors

When outsourced to an experienced agency, fewer errors will be committed by the team. The experience and expertise of the service provider will ensure that the responsibilities will be met with precision. Hence, the overall efficiency will be increased manifold.

●      Planning ahead

A company needs proper planning to execute several projects at a time. In fact, the pipeline projects need to be chronologically handled. This is where secretaries can help build a brilliant plan to work on the existing projects and maintain resources accordingly.

●      Proper corporate structuring

The expertise of a secretary service is also to plan a proper corporate structuring or restructuring as per the company’s requirement.

It is quite a challenge to maintain productivity of your business when you have too much pressure in your work. You might face problems in controlling all your work alone. Your company might lose profits and might become unorganized due to lack of proper management. This is when you need assistance to handle the certain amount of job virtually. Virtual executive assistant is the one who will allow you to enjoy a stress-free life full of improvement and productivity.

Virtual executive assistants are equipped with required skills and experience to ensure that you don’t face any burden. Furthermore, you organizational work is settled in better way.

Benefits of hiring a virtual executive assistant:

Hiring virtual administrative assistants will help you complete more work in less time. Besides, they will manage everything dedicatedly. They are skilled professionals who can handle any task with efficiency. With a virtual executive assistant, you will be able to deliver the best service to your customers. You can have better communication with all your clients. You can add a touch of customization through the help of an efficient virtual executive assistant.

Apart from that, they will guide you about the latest trends in business and monitor various activities as well. You can maintain a peace of mind if you have a virtual executive assistant whom you can delegate a task faithfully. You might enjoy many advantages facilitating your business improvement through a virtual administrative assistant:

●      Proper planning and management: A virtual executive assistant might help you in proper planning and management. They will allow you to do your essential work and manage everything efficiently. They will help you to reduce your work stress, and you will have satisfying business experience with them.

●      Growing your business: You will be able to grow your business effectively with them as they can work remotely. When you are not able to do the work, they can quickly complete that within a stipulated time.

●      Business support: They give continuous business support and remain available to customers satisfying their needs. Besides, the virtual executive assistant will help you to get a digital presence. The engagement of your customers will also be increased, and with the best quality service, you will be able to retain your customers.

●      Keeping track of things: A virtual executive assistant can bring positive changes in your business, monitoring the activities regularly. They will keep track of the essential things and will remind you of various organizational meetings and business requirements. All these help to remove the weak areas in your business and prevent faults and errors in works.

●      Flexibility and productivity: The pay method of virtual executive assistant is flexible. You can pay them based on one project. Besides, they are also affordable, and you might get your work done at a very low rate.

●      Best quality work: You will be able to please your clients with high-quality work. You can get quality graphics if you get a virtual executive assistant. You can very quickly achieve your business goals through them. They can manage customer calls, chats and any other basic queries efficiently giving them quick responses.

Summing it up,

WHO ARE VIRTUAL ASSISTANTS? TYPES

 Virtual assistants, as the name suggests, are professionals who work independently from their homes, to assist their clients. These assistants also manage to make virtual appointments, travel arrangements, phone calls, email accounts and other jobs that require assistance and planning. When you look for the best virtual assistant services, you will get all-in-one package, so you do not have to invest separately for every other service.

 Mostly an expert/a professional in the fields of administration becomes a virtual assistant because of the administrative planning and organizing skills they have. However, to make a virtual assistant operate from their home/outside instead of the main office is quite challenging as the quality and skill of these assistants needs to be checked and verified from time-to-time.

 With social media and the internet ruling the virtual communication forums, virtual assistants for content management, social media, internet marketing and graphic designs are in more need.  In fact, at the time pandemic when there is a lockdown, virtual assistance are of great help.

 Many companies offer best virtual assistant services to local and global clients.  These companies deal with multiple services that can be helpful for you to manage the cost and your company-

 ●       Executive assistant for calendar and travel management.

●       Legal Executive assistants for non-fee earning legal assistant tasks.

●       Personnel Management Consulting for employee training etc.

●       Education Assistant for providing cost-effective solutions to the school administrations in handling students.

 NEED FOR VIRTUAL ASSISTANTS

 Virtual assistants play an important role to a company’s undisturbed workflow and business growth. Apart from these, hiring the best virtual assistant will lead to many merits:

 ●       There is more flexibility to hire a virtual assistant as they are hired only for specific purposes and not as a full-time employee.

●       By hiring a professional virtual assistant, businesses reduce their overhead costs.

●       Businesses save more time by outsourcing a few non-core activities to these virtual assistants. This increases the efficiency of work and operations.

●       Gives the business heads adequate time to make strategic plans for their business growth.

●       24/7 customer service is also offered. So if you are facing any issue during odd-hours too, these professionals will serve you with the service.

●       A virtual assistant works according to the needs and wants of their clients.

  WHAT ARE THE BASIC QUALIFICATIONS FOR A BEST VIRTUAL ASSISTANT?

 ●       A high-level education is more than enough for a virtual assistant. Along with this, when the assistant has some specialized training, it adds to their profile.

●       It is important to find a virtual assistant who is well versed in the computer language, software and programs.

●       When you need a virtual assistant for bookkeeping, ensure that the assistant is skilled with the basic accounting tasks.

 If you want to become a virtual assistant, approach the different online courses offered by many universities and other organizations.

 WHEN DOES YOUR BUSINESS NEED THE BEST VIRTUAL ASSISTANT SERVICES?

 ●       When your business operations are in need of a worker apart from your full-time employees for simple and short tasks that run up-to only a few hours of work, every day. Eg: Appoint virtual assistants for scheduling a meeting with the clients etc.

 ●       To answer emails and phone calls every day might hinder the work of your core workers. To avoid such major limitations, approach the virtual assistants who can assist your business by dealing with its non-core activities with more flexibility and reduced costs.

The outbreak of coronavirus (COVID-19), raises significanttopic of UAE employment law with specific considerations for a predominately emigrant/expatemployees. The Human Resource administration services and legal teams play a vital role in ensuring the workplace hygiene and managing the employees.  Particular legal advice should be sought where necessary, as the situation is changing daily.

 How should UAE employers manage information and misinformation?

 The UAE has a great number of expatriates and many of them are following new information shared on all mediums and both in UAE and their home countries with interest. The employers should ensure that their employees are only following the official government announcements, as there are many rumors doing the rounds and this results in spreading misinformation, which should be avoided. Bosses should prompt employees about the defamation laws that apply in the UAE and think aboutrenewing and recirculating their internet use and social media policies to reflect this.

 Can employers require medical screening and tests of employees?

  We know that some employers are taking actionsfor having their employees screened to ensure that they are healthy and not showing any signs of risks to other colleagues. Before applying any such exercises, employee agreement should be acquired and thought given to the steps the business will take if an employee is showing any symptoms.Employers should review employment contracts and HR services for small businesses in UAE policies concerning medical screening to see if any provisions are in place for employees who refuse to agree to a medical check-up.

 Can an employer require an employee to self-isolate and work from home?

 This is prospective:

•                 The employee is symptomatic – In this case the, it is likely that they should be on sick leave and therefore not working or if the employee is able to work from home.

 Employers should now be considering whether they need to do anything to enable home working and whether they want to boost employees to ensure that they have the correct set-up at home to be able to work there, if required to do so.

 Appropriate considerations may involve:

•                 Making sure that all employees have a way of logging on to secure systems from home;

•                 whether any employers' liability insurance cover would cover a personal injury sustained by an employee while working from home;

•                 How the employee will be handled while working from home;

•                 what measures need to be put in place to protect the confidential information of the business and personal data of employees and customers;

•                 where there is no established company home working policy in place, recording the arrangement with relevant employees in writing.

 Can an employer prevent an employee who has refused to self-isolate from accessing its premises or coming into contact with other employees or clients?

 Employers should re-check the employee’s employment contracts and policies to know whether and to what extent they are able to require employees to work away from the office.Employers have a general responsibility to sustain overall health and protection of all employees, and will understandably be keen to prevent the spread of illness through their staff as this could disrupt business for several weeks.