Extended Isolation Introduces Non-Viral Issues During Coronavirus
The spread of coronavirus has led many to working from home. While this is the correct approach to take for people’s continued safety and to help prevent the virus’ spread, it has led to an interesting new phenomenon. During this extended period of self-isolation, people have found themselves more prone to depression and a lack of motivation that can make it hard to do many things that we take for granted in our day to day.
With some of these periods set to last through the month of May, there is a need now more than ever for people to come together to take care of one another. How we do that though is limited to the ways that we are able to communicate and connect with people.
As so many are in their homes or places far from one another, the importance of phones, video conferencing, and other forms of communication cannot be stated enough. Thankfully, VoIP provides a means to achieve this, and allow for both businesses and individuals to communicate with one another in these trying times.
Keeping Contact During Coronavirus
While the obvious means of communication such as phones, VoIP phones, chat applications, and video conferencing are all obvious ways by which people can continue to communicate during isolation, there are other ways that can help improve the structure and method to allow for people to get the most out of their communication.
Keeping A Consistent Meeting Schedule
One of the biggest ways for organizations to help out is to have scheduled conference calls with their employees. This is important as with many businesses, in-person meetings are one of the main ways that information and important changes are communicated between coworkers.
By doing so, you can ensure that at least once a week, they are speaking and communicating with other people. You will also be able to make sure that with this consistency that your team will be able to check in on projects update one another of any changes or new developments in the business. It cannot be stressed enough the importance of this, both to keep your team on the same page, but also to check in on them.
For people that are living alone, isolation can become a highly detrimental effect to both their personal and their professional lives. This can, in the long term, affect their performance in the workplace, and their health.
Check in On Your Team
This brings us to our second point, which is to ensure that your team is doing well.
Spending the time to perform wellness checks or to just have voice or video conversations that aren’t strictly about business can help keep spirits high, as letting people chat about and share what is going on in their life can give a needed connection that they may not be getting elsewhere due to the quarantine.
- This also applies towards time spent outside of work. Checking in on your friends and loved ones helps all parties out, and lets you keep contact.
- In both instances, it can be helpful to plan activities to engage with during these conversations.
- These can be simple games or exercises just to make sure that everyone is active and engaged in the conversation, or simply just taking turns asking questions back and forth between people involved.
- The idea is to allow for everyone in the discussion to have a moment to express themselves should they wish to.
As the length of the quarantine period is going to vary from state to state, it will become increasingly important to keep contact with one another to make sure that everyone is doing well.
Rediscovering the Phone
A lot of businesses working from home are relying primarily on the use of laptop computers for their day to day needs in the workplace. While this has allowed for a new sense of mobility and indeed allows for these companies to continue operations during the shelter in place orders that are effective across the US, it still leaves gaps that need to be filled.
One of those gaps is telecommunications. For many businesses, phone calls are the backbone of their business in one way or another, and not having access to them can have serious consequences no matter how good their other devices may function. For customers, this creates a challenge as well since they may be used to conversing with and having that kind of access to the organization.
This is where VoIP shines. As it works off an internet connection rather than traditional phone lines, companies can take their phones with them wherever they go. This allows for businesses to keep that level of communication and keep in contact with their customers.
Being able to do so can be a lifeline to companies that may have otherwise been stranded, and with VoIP phones you can keep the same phone numbers. With their ease of setup, you can rest assured that you can get your phones working fast and get back to taking care of your business.
Having the capacity to teleconference with your team as well also gives you all an additional line of communication that can assist in keeping inter-office discussion flowing between people.
Don’t Wait to Deliver Information
When adjusting to a new working situation, or even finding a flow and rhythm with how you are working within isolation can create habits that may let information get around more slowly. While this is understandable, especially during initial setup, it is important to not let it become a routine in the long term.
As much as consistent communication is important, so too is quick communication. Making sure that everyone is informed on a level playing field can help to ensure that projects and work are getting done efficiently and to the standard that they need to be kept.
This also helps to keep coworkers feeling as though they matter and are plugged in to the current events of the company, which can also help to keep them motivated.
No matter what, communication is important during isolation. How or in what forms that comes in can vary from company to company, but it should be taken into consideration no matter what.
Now more than ever is a time for people to take care of and look out for one another. By adjusting how we treat our work from home space, we can all make the isolation feel a little less so.
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