Successfully switching to a virtual office – ESOMAR COVID-19 Open Community Support Circle

The outbreak of COVID-19 is sending shockwaves throughout the world, affecting everyone. To support our community ESOMAR has setup weekly calls with our membership to share best practices, learn from each other and come up with solutions on how our sector can best prepare for what is coming.

With many countries in some form of lockdown, and many more following, our first session covered the topic of how to switch to a virtual office. After Bianca Marcu shared the latest guidance from data protection authorities on what to keep in mind from the data protection perspective, the floor was opened to participants attending the call. The discussion that followed gave rise to three main aspects that need consideration when switching to a virtual office:

1. Review the security & remote access policy
2. Change how you manage your team
3. Stay connected

Review the security & remote access policy

When people work from home, they should still have access to the data and resources that allow them to do their job. This should be done in a secure way, in particular when dealing with sensitive information, such as personal or financial data. It’s therefore highly recommended to review your policies, and ensure they are up-to-date and fit for purpose.

While it may not be at the top of your mind right now, you want to make sure you can prevent any accidents. Data protection laws continue to apply, and you want to avoid a situation where you only get into action when things have gone wrong already.

The ESOMAR Data Protection Checklist can help you tremendously when reviewing your policies. It is also key that everyone in your organization understands and is aware of the policies and requirements. As an employer you are still responsible for any data breach occurring.

Change how you manage your team

Another emerging theme that came out of the call was that working from home requires a different kind of management. Many employees will have to juggle working from home (perhaps for the first time!) and sharing their time and space with children and spouses due to the school and/or childcare closures. It’s important to allow more flexibility in terms of re-arranging work-life balance.

Clarity and managing expectations on targets may be very helpful to your employees’ performance. Try to adopt a more results-oriented management style rather than focusing on pure productivity metrics like being in the office on time and working a specific set of hours per day.

To maintain a fully functional team throughout the day, you may consider splitting your teams in shifts, and allowing more flexibility in working hours, so that people can arrange their days differently and sustain their usual productivity.

Stay connected

While working from home and practising social distancing, it is very important to stay in touch with each other. Organising weekly or even daily calls with your team can ensure that everyone feels connected. Move away from emails only and privilege the use of Slack, Teams, Skype, GoTo Meeting, Facebook Workplace and other similar platforms, both for internal and external communications.
Be mindful though that when using video conferencing people may not always feel comfortable with sharing a video of their home.

Resources

• Summary of the findings from the meeting
• Recording of the meeting
• All ESOMAR resources on COVID-19