As a business leader, there may be times when you need to step away from daily operations, whether for a vacation, family matter or other reason. Maintaining productivity and efficiency in your absence is key to keeping your business running smoothly. Implementing some thoughtful strategies before you leave can enable your team to continue progress while you’re away.
1. Prepare Your Team
The most important aspect of seamless operations is ensuring your team is prepared. First, communicate your time away well in advance and reiterate the responsibilities various team members will take on. Provide training sessions if needed. Ensure managers have clear authority in your absence to make decisions. Document pertinent policies, instructions or guidelines they may need in a shared folder. If major initiatives will happen while you’re gone, do preparatory legwork beforehand. With training and guidance, your team will gain confidence to maintain workflows.
2. Set Up Communication Channels
Consistent communication is vital. Set up an email autoresponder indicating dates you’re unavailable and who to contact instead. Create a shared calendar noting your absence, relevant meetings and deadlines. Hold a meeting beforehand to discuss ongoing priorities and expectations; schedule check-ins while away from the office if a long period. Enable designated managers to quickly address needs or questions. Provide a way for employees to offer input and give feedback if adjustments become necessary while you’re away. Ongoing communication, even virtually, will allow operations to flow effectively in your absence.
3. Leverage Technology
Cloud-based tools and technology resources enable seamless remote collaboration, information sharing and productivity. Ensure everyone adopts solutions to collaborate on projects and track deadlines. Share key documents on Google Drive or Office 365. Schedule online meetings through video chat tools. Utilise productivity software, templates and workflows to systematise certain tasks. Guide your team on continuing workflows through these platforms when you can’t actively facilitate them. The right technology, thoughtfully implemented, empowers teams to sustain operations when leaders must be absent.
4. Utilise Online Resources and Tools
Myriad online platforms offer valuable resources, such as a work instruction template, to boost productivity and efficiency. Create guides, templates or checklists tailored to your workplace and upload them to shared folders, ensuring they remain accessible in your absence. Encourage employees to incorporate tools like Adobe Sign for digital documents, Otter.ai for automatic meeting transcriptions and QuickBooks Time for time tracking. Share sites with productivity tips, tutorials and recommendations. When you return, solicit feedback on which resources were most useful so you can continue making them available. Well-utilised online resources enable teams to excel independently.
5. Empower Employee Initiative
Ultimately, sustained success when you’re away depends on your team feeling empowered to maintain workflows. Encourage managers and employees at every level to take initiative through thoughtful, independent decisions when appropriate. Establish reasonable parameters but avoid micromanagement. Make it clear you trust your team and support the solutions they implement to resolve unexpected challenges. Empower people to assess situations, identify solutions and take action without your direct input. Ensure everyone knows their role and feels comfortable making smart choices when you can’t weigh in immediately. Confident, decisive employees will keep everything running smoothly.
6. Institute Performance Reviews
Periodic check-ins provide opportunities for constructive feedback, helping teams continuously improve independent operations. Schedule one-on-one reviews between managers and employees before you depart, mid-way through your absence and upon returning. Evaluate what is working well and what could be better regarding communication, accountability, resource allocation and more. Encourage discussions about how employees are handling increased responsibilities, roadblocks encountered and any desired mentoring. Use feedback to implement changes, improving future self-management when leadership steps away. Continuous performance evaluations let teams perpetually strengthen autonomous workflows.
7. Define Contingency Plans
Despite best efforts, unexpected challenges may still arise, impacting key objectives. Define contingency plans for various scenarios where quick pivoting is required. Empower designated managers to assess situations and rapidly implement pre-approved backup plans if original methods become unfeasible. Build in extra timeframes or resource allocations if reasonable. Share authority to rearrange priorities or restart processes if certain initiatives stall. Establish emergency contacts across leadership chains if higher input becomes necessary. Though you hope disruptions won’t occur, giving your team pre-defined contingency plans ensures minimal productivity loss if rapid changes become essential. Some thoughtful preparation means your absence doesn’t have to hinder workplace progress or efficiency. Adequate communication, leveraged technology and empowered employees are key drivers. Implement tips like delegated responsibilities, collaborative platforms and transparent guidelines to facilitate seamless operations while you’re away.
Post in collaboration.
Follow me on Facebook | Instagram | Pinterest | Twitter
