Unfortunately, the wide-ranging effects of the Coronavirus have forced much of the American workforce into work-from-home situations for the foreseeable future. 

Most forward-thinking businesses are going into this unchartered territory already with plans in place that will cause little disruption to their business as their employees work from home. 

However, many small to medium-sized business owners have never even considered work-from-home options for their employees let alone investing all the time and capital into making that happen. 

So at BKS we’re going to spend the next couple of weeks helping get business owners on the right track so that they can not only keep their employees productive for the next few weeks, but also come out of this global health crisis even stronger than they were before it began. 

In this article, we’ll focus on the best way teams should begin their day — something we at BKS refer to as The Morning Huddle. 

Obviously, when you’re in your office your entire team doesn’t meet every single morning. But now that you all may be segregated, it’s important for everyone to check-in at least once a day for a number of reasons — the most important of which is to ensure that everyone is on the right track with their appointed tasks. 

Below we’ll list other key features of The Morning Huddle:

  • Schedule The Morning Huddle to occur at the beginning of every workday. 
  • Each Morning Huddle needs an appointed facilitator that will keep the meeting on track and no longer than 30 minutes. 
  • The Morning Huddle can be kept to just members of particular teams (management, production, accounting etc... ) Not every employee needs to hear from every other department on a daily basis. 
  • The purpose of The Morning Huddle is to track progress, accountability, and removal of chokepoints/impediments
  • Use The Morning Huddle to prevent siloed thinking and siloed actions and encourage collaboration — the kind that would occur if the team was still working together in an office environment. 
  • Don’t use The Morning Huddle as a project status meeting, which will unnecessarily lengthen it.

Each Morning Huddle should focus of three questions

  • What did you do yesterday?
  • What will you do today?
  • What hurdles or impediments will keep you from your goals?

When it comes to your company’s Morning Huddle you’ll need the proper online platform to ensure it goes smoothly from a technical point of view. BKS recommends using either Microsoft Teams (which is part of just about all Microsoft 365 packages) or Zoom. We can also recommend Google Hangouts; however, that platform may not easily integrate with your current company IT platforms. 

If you need help or have any questions about conducting a Morning Huddle or the equipment you’ll need to ensure it runs smoothly, please don’t hesitate to contact the IT pros at BKS. We’re happy to help!