Zoom - How Not to Use It and Staggering Teleworkers
Two weeks ago we started sending out emails to client business owners and GM's pertaining to COVID-19 response. Those were being shared and forwarded and we made the decision to make them all public at axiomstrategic.com/blog. If you haven't seen those emails you can review them there.
As clients settle into more employees working from home we have been inundated with questions about process, equipment, etc. Here are a few bullet points that most employers are not talking about.
Zoom is best as an all or nothing platform. What I mean by this is if you are using Zoom for the meeting everyone should be dialing in to the meeting. Having three participants in the office conference room and three others dialing in from home is a recipe for disaster. It works fine for the people in the office. But for those at home the audio quality is often terrible unless you have invested in video conferencing gear. It is also inevitable that there will be two meetings happing at the same time: the virtual meeting with all six participants and the in-person meeting with the three people in the conference room. Again, it works fine for the people in the conference room, but terribly for those dialing in. Zoom meetings work very well when everyone has their own head in their own little box.
If employees don't have laptops or webcams to dial-in separately they can use mobile devices. We created a short video showing just how easy this is.
Schedule telework coverage. Employers are finding that telework and home schooling create for a challenging work environment. Do your employees a favor and stagger required availability times. It's OK to expect employees to work a full day. It's probably not OK to expect them to be instantly available all-day. If you have four CSR's working from home during an 8-5 day allow them to go 2 hours on, 1 hour off at staggered intervals so they can help the kids stay on track throughout the day. Providing a schedule gives them and their kids a realistic expectation of what the day will look like.
As we have developed tools to help clients and other business owners we have also been making those public. These include...
How to cashflow the required paid medical and child care leave that begins TODAY
How to apply for payroll protection act loans
Forecasting cash flow effects for the remainder of 2020
How to calculate debt forgiveness on payroll protection act loans
First look at the payroll protection act loan application forms
If you know others who want these resources as we send them out they can subscribe at our website.