Tips for Leading Remote Teams

We humans are hardwired for negativity – it’s a throwback from our early days of survival, being chased by big, hairy, toothy animals. We still possess the ability to let our thoughts drift to the worst-case scenario (especially if we’re managing teams and leading projects). One thought leads to another and all of a sudden, we’re running for our lives in our own minds!

When the world feels chaotic, and there’s doom and gloom all around, take a breath in . . . let it out . . .  turn down the noise and the self-doubt, stay in the present moment.  You are alive and breathing, and you’re safe. Think about the good things that are happening in your life and focus on them.

We stumble. We fall. We fail. What’s really important is that we get back up, rather than stay in the ruts we’ve dug for ourselves. Remember to express gratitude for the good things. Through sincere, kind words encourage this point of view in your team as you aim to stay on the sunny side of life. 

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• Mindfulness Skills

We’re all familiar with the notion of self-care, so much that it’s become a cliché, and a billion-dollar industry. But caring for oneself is more than a bubble bath or a retail therapy. Self-care is finding moments in your day to breathe and reflect. Self-care is about restorative activities to help reduce stress.

Some of us may need a little more guidance when it comes to reducing our stress. CNM’s Employee Assistance Program can help! Log in to your account with ComPsych to find self-care/coping resources. Here you’ll find trainings on a variety of topics, including wellness. Go at your own pace! If you’ve never logged in to this resource before, go to the registration link and enter “CNMCC” as the Organization Web ID. You’ll be prompted to create your personal username and password. Please pass this information on to everyone on your team. If you need help getting started contact the Benefits Team at [email protected].

Members of your team might feel they are a participant in a stress test experiment! Maybe you’re wondering, how do I help them bounce back? Take a moment and consider offering your team members resources that center around the idea of resilience. Resilience is the ability to adapt to difficult situations. We CAN bounce back, and that strength comes from within:

If you or members of your team find that bouncing back is harder than it seems, there are several ways to get support to work through the challenges you may have never faced before:

• If an employee has work concerns the Employee Assistance Program provides confidential support.
• For employee concerns that bleed over areas of their lives, CNM has confidential solutions to those challenges.

We hope you’ll seek out these great tools of resilience as you continue to navigate the unknown. 

Considering the challenging times we are currently living in, it might not be so easy to take your mind off pressing concerns. This is probably true for members of your team as well. Maybe there are people you supervise who need support so they can breathe a little easier, too.

No one is useless in this world who lightens the burdens of another.

Charles Dickens

It’s not so easy to ask for help, we know. But as supervisors at CNM you are an important resource of information and a support system for your team during these stressful times.

CNM’s Coronavirus (COVID-19): Community Information webpage provides community resources to help solve concerns around health and wellness, food insecurity, utility payments, childcare and more. These resources can help employees in your department who may not want to ask for help, but need it. Encourage them to visit the page often, as the information is updated regularly.

We’re a few days into the CNM Fall 2020 Term. How are you doing? You might be aware that some CNM employees on your team are supervising a school of their own, as they shepherd their kids’ education from the family room.

If you notice that members of your team are juggling homeschooling and their CNM responsibilities, there are some ways you can help. Here are a few suggestions:

Acknowledge that the struggle is real. Identify and reach out to team members who have children at home. Check in with them. Listen. Empathize.  Let them know that you are here to help them come up with a plan that allows them to care for their family, support the education of their children AND do their work for CNM.

Suggest a reduction in hours. A slight reduction in hours, if your department can accommodate it, might assist employees as they juggle work and family through the COVID phases.

Consider options like the redistribution of their workload. Identify times that can help make employees lives easier by loosening up their schedules a bit. You may even consider allowing employees to work on weekends if it helps them juggle their responsibilities better, at least until we return to campus life post-COVID.

You can get what you need out of your team, while helping them devise plans to stabilize their home/work environments. In doing so, you’ll give employees the latitude they need while we all make the best out of this challenging time.

If you need more suggestions to help employees manage their work at CNM as they support their children studying at home, please reach out to HR. We’re happy to help!