Chronically Capable Presents
Managing Remote Teams During COVID-19
Taking Care of Employees with Disabilities and Chronic Illnesses during this Pandemic
Chronically Capable Presents
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The best time to prepare for a crisis is before it happens, but many of us were caught off guard by the rise of COVID-19. During this time, you might be wondering how this public health pandemic affects your employees with chronic health conditions and disabilities.
While information included here is not to be construed as medical or legal advice, we want to provide some suggestions for taking care of your employees during this time.
Hopefully you already have an existing reasonable accommodation process in place as mandated by the Americans with Disabilities Act. This is a good time to review the process for employees requesting accommodations and remove any barriers for them doing so. A good reasonable accommodation process is easy to access—a central phone number or email they can reach out to—and iterative—a back and forth conversation between HR professional and employee as to the best accommodation.
Employers must continue to provide reasonable accommodations to employees during this time in accordance with the ADA. For example, an employee with asthma may ask to work from home as a reasonable accommodation due to the high risk that exposure to the virus from other coworkers in a crowded workspace may pose. In this example, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), states that
"...employees with disabilities that put them at high risk for complications of pandemic influenza may request telework as a reasonable accommodation to reduce their chances of infection during a pandemic.”
The request to work from home is a reasonable accommodation even if your company does not have a policy allowing it.
During this time, your employees may be feeling increased anxiety and stress about work and personal problems that are heightened by the coronavirus. To support your employees, make sure to highlight and emphasize the resources that your Employee Assistance Program (EAP) can provide during this time. EAPs can provide a variety of support ranging from behavioral and mental health, counseling, and other wellness support. They serve as a first step that can guide your employees to other work or health related resources during this time. Many companies have this helpful resource but seldom advertise it to their employees. Now is the time to make sure the phone number and contact information is readily available for your employees to utilize.
Chief Product Officer, Chronically Capable
In an ever-connected world there are many ways for you to engage with your employees virtually. If possible, go beyond emails and phone calls, to host team meetings by video conferencing. Apps like Google Hangouts, Skype for Business, and Zoom make it easy to build teamwork and collaboration when you can still see your teammates and exchange ideas live.
Additionally, use video calls to host virtual coffee chats or office hours where you can set up time for your employees to chat with you one on one and get the help they need quickly. Turn common thinking on its head and before sending an email ask yourself if this could be a good use for a video call. It helps save email clutter and builds rapport with your team. And you don’t need to wait for a business need to arise before you reach out to your direct reports. Make time in your schedule to individually check in on them and see how their day is going.
When starting out working from home, everyone’s virtual leadership style and management will be different, and it may take some time adjusting to get it right. Leading during this time of uncertainty is a lot different than business as usual. Take time to be open and honest in seeking feedback from your employees on what they need to make this a successful work environment.
Are you setting your employees up for success in this virtual space? Is everyone on the team getting the same visibility? Are your employees getting what they need in a timely manner? These are all great questions to ask to your team directly. Seek their candor and be receptive to implementing the solutions they come up with.
Communication will now differ than when you’re in person. Communicating in a virtual environment changes to be more task focused than social such as when you’re in a conference room for a meeting. In this way it’s harder to create cohesion and trust. Thus, you need to be more deliberate in showing that these conditions are in place. Take steps to cultivate social interaction. It’s best to do this when the team first starts working remotely; set norms and expectations and talk through how the team is going to work and function in the remote environment. Be sure to include time for social communication.
Some questions to ask yourself include:
Additionally, make sure to consider spontaneous types of interactions, as this type of interactions are often absent in virtual work. Make sure there are a variety of communication channels for your workers to utilize. For example, Slack and chat platforms can provide a social outlet but also help spark creativity and innovation as well. Lastly, make sure to share this plan with the team as it serves as an operating and agreement plan on how you will coordinate and collaborate with each other.
Get back to the basics on the purpose, focus and what you prioritize as a team and as an organization. Link each person’s role to the team’s priorities. This will help keep people engaged and it also helps foster teamwork.
When you move to a virtual environment you lose social distance – psychological and emotional distance. It comes naturally in person. It’s the rapport and trust that you must work hard to build in a virtual environment. A foundation of trust is important, for example in knowing why someone is late with an assignment or missing documents. When faced with this situation, it’s easy to come up with inferences that are more negative and personal rather than situational—internet outage, kids at home, or other factors that can delay work.
That is why empathy and perspective taking is important here. Perspective getting, asking questions and being curious is key to resolving potential conflicts. Ask what is getting in your way? How can we help you? Lastly, once rapport and trust is built, you then can establish shared accountability in the work being done.
Create opportunities for people’s voice to be heard. People have different styles of communicating. Someone can be nervous about participating on camera. Include without forcing them to voice their opinions in a certain way. For example, you can send questions for the meeting ahead of time so that people who are internally focused can have time to process and think. Additionally, you can give people time to send comments about the meeting afterward to contribute thoughts to the meeting before finalizing next steps or sending a meeting recap.
One of the biggest factors of telework satisfaction is supervisory support and not just the work tech setup. Thus, it is important to care beyond the team’s work and productivity during this time. You don’t have to do it all yourself. We’re under a lot of stress due to the pandemic and this change in our lives. Reach out to other people to help – to build rapport with the team.
How can you care more? Recognize the individual things that people are going through right now. Slow down to recognize the greater picture of what people are facing – family, school closures, change in workspace, etc.
Chronically Capable is an employment platform that connects chronically ill professionals to companies looking to hire a digital workforce and meet the 7% utilization goal required under Section 503 of the Rehabilitation Act.
By posting a job and hiring workers through Chronically Capable, not only are employers receiving the highest-quality talent, but they are also serving as a powerful force in reducing the stigma around hiring chronically ill workers.
Both employers and applicants will have access to customizable dashboards and resources.