By Kara Sherrer
The ongoing coronavirus pandemic has caused a seismic shift in the workplace. Many employees are working remotely, either temporarily or permanently, and many schools (including Vanderbilt Business) have made plans to teach at least part of the curriculum remotely. With nearly five months of remote working and teaching under their belts, Vanderbilt Business faculty and staff share their best advice for getting work done remotely.
Some responses have been edited for clarity and length.
Rangaraj Ramanujam, Richard M. and Betty Ruth Miller Professor of Management
“Using a mix of media — e.g., Zoom with video, Zoom without video, phone call, text, Slack, email, etc. — rather than over-relying on a single medium helps to break the monotony and more effectively manage time and tasks. Of course, figuring out which medium works best for what and when is a process of continuous learning.”
Juli Bennett, Executive Director, Executive MBA Programs
“Agility will be key to your success and satisfaction. Uncertain times require learning agility —even how courses are delivered may change at any time. Agility in how you interact with others will also help you maintain strong relationships at work, home, and school. Things simply can’t be done the way we’ve always (done) them.”
Elizabeth Bumpous, Enrollment Management Specialist, Career Launcher Programs
“Take pride in your work just as you would if you were in a physical building. Show respect and concern for others. They are going through a lot that we do not know about in their personal lives financially and medically. Show compassion and be there for them.”
Jesse Blocher, Assistant Professor of Finance
“Your attention is your most valuable resource — protect it from the array of pop-ups, notifications, dings, etc. Do this on your phone and computer. Manage your notifications: start by removing everything first, then adding back in the most important items. When working, shut everything else down and focus to stay in the activity. You actually are terrible at multi-tasking even if you think you are great at it, so work hard to train yourself to single-task.”
Madison Gibson Iberg, HR Manager
“Communication and flexibility to the team is important. It is easy to feel as though you are being watched and feel pressure to always be online, especially when working from home. Leaders should communicate expectations to the team in order to be successful. Employees and teammates should also feel they are able to say when and what times they are available, and that should be respected by the team.”
Bill Christie, Frances Hampton Currey Professor of Management in Finance
“Be patient, and don’t try to be perfect. This is new to almost everyone, students, faculty and staff. Show each other and yourself grace as we adapt during the mod. Ask each other for help and focus on learning and being in community, even if it is virtual.”
Maura Clark, Director of Admissions, Master of Science in Finance Program
“Allow for some small talk at the start, middle, and/or end of meetings. Build in a little extra time if needed so your team can reconnect and catch up about life. Also schedule meetings to allow for time in between to transition. It is hard to have virtual meetings start on the hour all day. Lastly, always wear pants!”
Jessica Kennedy, Associate Professor of Management
“Virtual teams have many advantages. Typically, virtual interactions are more efficient and offer greater freedom to team members, and sometimes they enable better work-life integration. Building trust is the main challenge, but this can be resolved by setting the right team norms. Start meetings with time for personal exchanges and do your best to stay engaged and show up with your true self so that your team members can know you. Trust is a function of ability in part, but also benevolence and integrity, so demonstrating good intentions and justifiable principles for your behavior can lead to the same level of trust you find in-person. Virtual teams also offer an opportunity to develop better communication skills. Since your group members can’t see you, they may not know what you are doing. Keep them updated on your progress and be sure that you always do what you say you will do. Unless you disengage or hold yourself less accountable to your standards of performance, virtual interactions don’t have to be worth less than face-to-face ones.”
Sandy Kinnett, Senior Associate Director, Career Management Center
“Take detailed notes! Without in-person interactions or the ability to walk down the hall to go back over something with your colleague or classmate, I find that detailed note-taking and writing down specific follow-up items is more critical than ever to keep projects moving forward.”
Hunter Land, Assistant Professor of Accounting
“As Uncle Ben told Peter Parker, ‘With great power comes great responsibility.’ I would encourage you to use the increased flexibility that comes with working virtually responsibly. Create a schedule that prioritizes your goals for the semester. Then, don’t let yourself down. Be accountable to that schedule, but more importantly, be accountable to your priorities. If you need to adjust how you allocate your time, do it.”
Roman Di Gaetano, Senior Media Support Specialist
“Plan your days tasks in advance and set a priority list. Don’t neglect your personal life and schedule time to disconnect from work and projects. Setting proper boundaries will help you stay physically and mentally healthy in a time where we might be expected to be available at any given moment.”
Kimberly Pace, Professor for the Practice of Communication
“Prep your visual space like preparing for live TV. Make sure your lighting, background, and wardrobe matches your authentic, professional image you want to project. Stay engaged by displaying more facial expressions and looking directly into the camera on your laptop. Overall, attitude is everything. Choose positivity and appreciative inquiry.”
Peter Haslag, Assistant Professor of Finance
“Utilize the tools in the course to stay engaged with the material. There are usually several avenues for engagement with the course — e.g. class meetings, discussion boards, journals, etc. — so make sure you utilize at least one consistently. This will allow you to apply the material or seek feedback to gauge your understanding. For example, not everyone may be comfortable chiming in on Zoom calls, but there are likely discussion boards or informal chats that will ultimately yield a deeper understanding of the concepts.”
Brook Meissner, Senior Associate Director, Career Management Center
“Especially in our present situation, I have found it helpful when a team knows the context in which its members are working — for example, if you (or) some members are also caring for children while working, or if everyone needs to take a break from using video since they’ve already done so quite a bit earlier in the day.”
Jean Marie Grumbles, Marketing Operations Manager
“Sometimes it is the simplest of advice that makes the biggest impact on your situation. One thing that I took for granted when going to a building to work or even going to school is the movement you have throughout the day. You walk from your car to the building and back, you walk to the restroom, you walk to lunch, you walk over and say hi to friends or colleagues, maybe you go fill up your water bottle, or go up and down the stairs several times a day. While working virtually, it is so easy to sit in one place for hours and hours and never get up. Setting a timer on your phone to remind you to get up and walk around, stretch, get out and get fresh air and sunshine, and the movement will make a bigger impact then you might think.”
Cory McDonald, Associate Director of Development
“Stay focused on tasks and plan your day into segments of work and segments of non-work.”
Dora Cardona, Assistant Director of Enrollment Management
“This work-from-home period is not the same as pre-2020. Try to stay connected with your coworkers to continue to have that feeling of camaraderie. Understand that a lot has changed in a lot of people’s lives. Use the tools available to you (Zoom, IM, Slack, Skype) for connection at work wisely, although they can be overused.”
Megan Nichols, Senior Associate Director, Career Management Center
“It can take time to transition to a virtual workplace, especially when your team thrives in the office with face time and a lot of collaboration. Communication is absolutely the key to functioning and being productive in this environment. Keep your team informed and check in with each other, using a team chat function either in Slack or Microsoft Teams. On the other hand, this transition to an all virtual team requires setting boundaries for yourself, especially if you tend get addicted to your work or that chat function gets a bit distracting. Everyone feels the Zoom and video fatigue, but I do think when appropriate, seeing the faces of team members can help with motivation and connection.”
Luke Froeb, William C. Oehmig Chair in Free Enterprise and Entrepreneurship
“Set clear goals with metrics, timetables, and a way to hold people accountable (e.g., incentive pay).”
Tim Vogus, Brownlee O. Currey, Jr., Professor of Management
“When working virtual, lay the groundwork and be ‘bursty.’ By laying the groundwork, I mean spending the time to get to know each other and your preferred styles of work — spending time exploring the differences and uniqueness of each person, that’s where the creativity and learning emerges. Use this foundation to create expectations for how you will work together. One way of working together that has been shown to be effective virtually is being ‘bursty.’ Bursty teams switch between solo work to get things done followed by intense periods where everyone is exchanging information at the same time and gets the team on the same page. ‘Burstiness’ ups team performance significantly.”
