According to Verizon, one of their busiest days for phone calls is Mother’s Day. This year, the number of calls they saw on Mother’s Day Sunday doubled to more than 800 million calls. Additionally, the time spent on the phone per call has increased overall across providers. Americans are calling more and spending more time on the phone than they have in decades. 

The craving for human connection extends far past wishing moms well. Early on, Zoom and Google Hangouts were the clear winners for unifying coworkers in a newly remote office setting. Over time, this preference has faded and traditional phone calls have come back in fashion. For one-to-one conversations it’s easier to pick up the phone and no one has to deal with buffering or disconnection issues.  

When your days are spent isolating at home with just family or housemates (or no one at all), talking to a colleague can be a breath of fresh air. People are really missing their normal routines, like catching up at the water cooler or talking about their favorite show. Even though historically employees felt that a lot of meetings could take place over email, now we’re seeing that a lot of communication that could be text-based is moving to be over the phone. 

Phones are also vital to businesses that are still operating face-to-face. With takeout and delivery in high demand, people are thinking twice about hanging around when their order is ready. Instead, restaurants are calling or texting their customers when their order is ready or when a delivery has been left at the doorstep. People are calling local breweries and stores to place orders when they would usually avoid calling at all costs.  

Generally, Gen Z and Millennials are the ones blamed for the downfall of the phone. In fact, a whopping 81% of millennials surveyed said they get anxious before making a call. This could be a self-fulfilling fear: many people rely on text communication and are out of practice in talking over the phone, making the idea more anxiety-inducing. 

We hope that the new reliance on phones in the workplace will remain and help people to continue to use phones as a means of communication well past 2020. Phones are uniquely able to facilitate social distance while building togetherness, and that’s exactly what we need right now. 

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The best way to prevent the spread of COVID is through limiting contact with others, as it is extremely communicable. This may be a difficult transition for your team (read our tips for newly remote employees), but you can make it easier while maintaining productivity. The key is to have a plan.

Here are 4 ways companies can successfully become a mobile-friendly workplace and empower remote workers:

1. Remove the Stigma

Often, the biggest barrier to remote work is at the top of an organization’s hierarchy. The C-suite believes that remote work will decrease productivity, increase costs, and disconnect their employees. However, the myths just don’t hold up! One article by Trello shares the truth behind common misconceptions about working remotely.

It’s worth finding out who your remote work naysayers are and finding out what they dislike about the idea in order to address it head-on. By removing the stigma, you’ll make employees more comfortable taking remote days when they may be contagious.

2. Set Expectations

No one likes to be micromanaged, but if you’re used to having ongoing check-ins throughout the day or week, decide how you’ll manage them from afar. Will you hold a daily cafe meeting for the team? Check in via Slack? Ask for a roundup email at the end of the week?

When choosing how to spread information and delegate work, keep in mind that not much needs to change between how you were doing things in the office and now. Setting up a project management tool that everyone works out of can help to-do lists feel more collaborative and less like you’re being watched.

3. Invest in the Tools You Need

For companies that thrive on quick chats and sticky notes, think of how you’ll digitize these interactions. Consider task managers like Trello and Monday which let you keep track of the progress of project, assign them to users, and add notes and updates to those tasks.

Before everyone leaves for home, make sure that laptops are loaded with the programs they need and have their security systems updated. And, set your team up with a remote calling solution. This should be integrated into your VoIP system so that you can make and track calls from your business number through a mobile device. There’s no reason to lose out on the valuable connections and tracking available to you from your desk phone even when you’re home.

4. Be Flexible to the Situation

In most companies that allow full-time remote work, there are certain rules in place. For instance, the employee working remotely cannot be the only caretaker for a child, or you must be online for certain core hours. While these are good rules to maintain productivity and normalcy, when there’s a global outbreak, normalcy isn’t always an option.

While you may usually require that remote workers take calls in a quiet environment, with schools closing and more people working from home, that just might not always be a possibility for your team. Ask everyone to do their best to build a productive working environment, but be lenient and bend some rules when you need to.

For companies going mobile for the first time, we hope it’s an insightful experience to learn how you can better enable remote working for your team. After all, your team may prefer to continue adding remote days to their schedule when all is back to normal. And you may find that it works even better than you anticipated.

Don’t have a phone system that makes remote work easy? Find out if it’s time for your business to make the switch to modern telephone solutions.

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Coupled with the rise of open office plans and long commutes on shared transportation, it’s smart to tell employees to stay home. Not only will this help them stay healthier, but it will also keep sick employees from infecting other employees and others in your local population.

We hope that the increase in remote workers during this crisis will remain long after the sickness passes. However, we also know that for many people, working remotely for long stretches at a time can be daunting when you’ve never done it before. That’s why we’re putting together a few best practices for employees that are working from home for the first time.

1. Be Mindful of the Positives

If you’re a social butterfly, it’s okay to fear feeling a little isolated during this time. However, focusing on all the benefits of working remotely can help balance your mindset and find more joy in working at home. If you find yourself eating out or going out to coffee a lot during the workweek, notice how much money you’re saving or how much healthier you feel eating home-cooked meals. Enjoy being able to heat up lunch on the stove instead of in a shared microwave.

2. Make the Most of Your Extra Time

On average, Americans spend about 26 minutes commuting – that’s almost an hour a day! Choose what to do with this new time that you won’t be spending behind a wheel and the money you’re saving in gas, tolls, or transit fees. To fend off the new lonely feelings you might be getting, use that extra time to go for a walk and call a friend, meet someone for coffee or tea, or cook a meal with someone.

3. Be Present in Meetings

You might be seeing an uptick in virtual meetings as people adjust to not being able to have spontaneous conversations with a group. When you’re in these meetings, stay present. Don’t look at your phone or other websites and take notes. Send follow-up emails detailing the steps your group decided on so that everyone stays on the same page. You may find that you become more efficient than you were before!

4. Rely on Your Technology

Most companies use an integrated mail, calendar, and file suite plus tools like task managers, chatting, and more. Resist the urge to ping someone, “can you help me find this file?” or “when is this due again?”. Keep meticulous notes and update your task statuses. Use add-ons like Boomerang for Gmail to return unanswered messages to the top of your inbox or functions like Slack’s remind feature to keep on top of your tasks. While you may feel out of sorts in the new environment, you can stay on top of your tasks with a little elbow grease.

5. Minimize Distractions

When your brain has equated going to work as a sign to get into “work mode” and being at home as “chill time,” sometimes it can be tough to get focused. Research Chrome extensions like pomodoro timers and website blockers so you don’t accidentally end up shopping online or getting distracted for too long. Schedule out your to-do list a little more than you normally would to make sure you’re getting the same work done in the same amount of time as before.

6. Keep Work and Home Separate

Longtime remote workers report that one of the big issues they faced was feeling like there isn’t a separation between home and work. Set concrete hours for your working time, lunch time, and off time, like you would at the office. And if you’re in the habit of eating at your desk, this could be a good time to try and reset to close your computer and walk away for 30 minutes. Set your Slack and email notifications to do not disturb after certain hours, and consider removing work apps from your cell phone so you aren’t tempted to peek a them after hours. Try to keep your working area separate from your sleeping or resting area, so you can fully disconnect at the end of the night.

We hope that businesses are taking all the necessary steps to help control the spread of all illnesses – not just the new coronavirus. Even when home alone, remember to wash your hands, wipe down your computer, phone, and other surfaces, and stay up to date with the latest CDC recommendations.

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