We recently moved our business activity to a “Work From Home” model. We have a couple suggestions for how to make the transition easier and some tools that can help support your business.

For us defining a routine had the most significant impact, the who/what/when of the household meant that – save for the odd intrusion – we could find time to do some of what we needed to achieve. And yes, ear plugs do make a difference.

Ensuring clear and open lines of communication across the team is paramount. Slack is a great messaging tool to deploy and can be defined around functional themes or projects so the discussion can be shaped around a topic and not “getting people up-to speed”.

Real time communication is important and a regular daily call (or two calls) help maintain openness and transparency across the business. Google Duo has been excellent for group video calls of up-to 8 people. Noise cancelling headphones work a treat.

Information sharing can be made easier with Dropbox, the Fremium version is good as a starter, while the Dropbox Professional package is $25 per month, you can cancel anytime and provides you with sufficient storage and user access to manage how you transfer data across a small team when email files just won’t work.

In our case our Brokers, Data Providers, Research Providers, Business Service Providers and Vendors are all struggling with the same challenges so maybe take the time upfront to connect with them and ask them how you can streamline access, communication and the business activity upfront rather than when you have an issue.

Finally, look to use some alternative resources to help support your business. We’ve worked with a company of virtual assistants to support specific aspects of our business. If you choose to then consider what you want to deploy to your virtual assistant(s). Aim to be specific, make any objectives sufficiently detailed, documented and provided clear guidance on how to escalate issues.

Hope this helps.