Tips for Working Remotely

Per the university Flexible Work Policy, some employees may be telecommuting or on a hybrid schedule. These tips were developed by Learning & Development to help employees adapt to working-- and managing-- remotely.

All Employees

Create a clean and dedicated workspace

  • Find a quiet, comfortable space with minimal distractions that has a computer and reliable internet
  • Set clear boundaries with your friends and family around your work hours

Communication

  • Don’t be afraid to over-communicate. When in doubt, overinclude to make sure everybody is in the loop
  • Regularly check your campus voicemail

Time Management

  • You should be available between Monday through Friday 8 a.m. - 5 p.m. PST unless you and your supervisor agreed to an alternative flexible work schedule
  • Keep your work calendar up to date
  • Schedule time for meals and breaks
  • Make daily or weekly to-do lists to stay on task

Virtual Tools

  • Use Google Drive, Google Sheets, and other G Suite tools to collaborate in real time on documents and deliverables
  • Meet with colleagues using virtual conferencing tools like WebEx, Zoom, and Google Meet, and make sure your camera is on if possible
  • Install the Workday app or Okta Verify to ensure you can access Workday from a remote location

Positive Intent

  • Tone and nuance can easily get lost via text, chat and email-- being empathic and assuming positive intent helps with potential misunderstandings

Self Care

  • University employees can get confidential help with personal or work-related difficulties using the Employee Assistance Program (EAP)
  • This is a new way of working; you may want to reach out to a colleague via a virtual meeting and support each other
  • Block off time for lunch breaks and eat healthy, well-balanced meals
  • Get plenty of sleep
  • Exercise regularly
  • Keep a consistent schedule

Supervisors & Managers

These tips can help you build trust, set expectations, and hold your team members accountable.

Communication

  • Create a group email list for your team
  • Make sure key information is accessible to all team members
  • Hold regular team-wide video meetings as well as individual check-ins with staff. Here are a few suggestions:
    • Daily individual check-in meetings with remote team members
    • Daily, brief team-wide video meetings
    • Regular team-wide video meetings
    • Regular 1:1s with direct reports
  • Communicate clear deadlines and action items over email and chat
  • Give feedback and coaching over the phone or video meetings as opposed to email

Technology

  • Create a process for sharing UNLV material that your team members need to conduct their work remotely (e.g., Google Docs, Google Sites, etc.)
  • Utilize Google shared drives to ensure important documents are easily accessible
  • Create a process and utilize technology for keeping safe confidential UNLV material your team members will be accessing or downloading as they work remotely
  • Ensure remote team members who need it have Virtual Private Network (VPN) access
    • Most campus resources (G Suite, Workday) do not require a VPN
    • If you need a VPN connection, please submit a request and include a description of what campus resource you need to access with VPN
    • VPN usage can slow connection speeds
    • Logout of the VPN when not in use

Meetings

  • Keep your calendar up to date and make sure there is enough available time for direct reports
  • Send emails with meeting agendas and notes
  • Create a template for meeting minutes and outcomes

Resources

UNLV Human Resources and Organizational Development are screening and curating resources to support and help campus work remotely. This list will be updated on an ongoing basis to continue to best support campus. Please contact Erin Collier, Director of Organizational and Employee Development at erin.collier@unlv.edu or 702-895-0676 if you have any suggestions or questions.

Please note: To access LinkedIn Learning videos, please make sure you are signed in to your LinkedIn Learning account provided at no cost to all UNLV employees.

Video Resources for Working Remotely

On Leadership

Leading in a time of crisis (30 minutes)

  • Korn Ferry
  • Now is a time for leaders to remind yourselves of what your people need you to do, and to pause and think about what type of leader you need to ‘be’ for others. We won’t have all the answers, and silence isn’t an effective response. We need to meet people where they are and understand their concerns, and we want them to stay adaptable and focused as our ways of working and the work itself changes.

On Remote Teams

Managing Virtual Teams (3 minutes, 23 seconds)

  • LinkedIn Learning, Daisy Lovelace, Professor, Consultant, and Coach.
  • Learn how to manage a virtual team. Discover how to set shared goals, delegate tasks, manage performance, and develop each member of the team.

Challenges of virtual collaboration (4 minutes)

  • LinkedIn Learning, Carol Kinsey Goman, international speaker, specializing in the impact of body language on leadership.
  • Learn how to lead collaboratively. Build more collaborative relationships within your team and throughout the organization.

Tools for virtual teams (4 minutes)

  • LinkedIn Learning, Tatiana Kolovou, Faculty Member at Kelly School of Business.
  • Learn tools for honing your communication skills in a virtual environment.

Communicating-in-virtual-meetings (3 minutes, 10 seconds)

  • LinkedIn Learning, Daisy Lovelace, Professor, Consultant, and Coach.
  • Learn how to develop practical communication practices in virtual meetings.

Keeping your people engaged and productive through the crisis (30 minutes)

  • Korn Ferry
  • As more companies ask their employees to work virtually, maintaining high levels of engagement and productivity won’t be easy. With a proven approach to remote connections and team management, it can be done well and set up employees for a seamless return to regular ways of working.

On Working Remotely

Working from Home (11 minutes)

  • YouTube, Lisa Barrington, Barrington Coaching.
  • Tips for working from home due to COVID-19.

On Health and Wellness

An introduction to mindfulness (three short videos, 7 minutes total)

  • LinkedIn Learning, Henna Inam, Coach, Author, and former C-Level Leader at Fortune 500 companies.
  • Mindfulness reduces stress, increases focus, and improves your ability to deal with challenges, both at work and at home. This introduction to mindfulness includes:
    • Becoming mindful at work
    • Why mindfulness?
    • The basics of good (mindfulness) practice

Managing Stress for Positive Change (multiple, short LinkedIn Learning videos, 57 minutes total)

  • In the workplace, stress is often viewed in purely negative terms. It's seen as a response that should simply be minimized or pushed aside; however, it's possible to use stress to fuel positive change. In this course, join instructor Heidi Hanna, PhD (speaker, author, and globally recognized stress and resilience expert) as she discusses what stress is, exactly; how you can train yourself to use stress in more effective ways; and what managers can do to reduce employee stress when an organization experiences difficult times. She covers how individuals can use stress for good by assessing and adjusting it, as well as what you-as a manager-can do to create an environment and communication style that helps connect employees to the bigger picture.

How to Manage Feeling Overwhelmed (multiple, short LinkedIn Learning videos, 43 minutes total)

  • Feeling overwhelmed is common. It’s a sign that the demands on your time and energy have surpassed your ability to cope with them. Sometimes overwhelm is temporary; other times, it can lead to persistent and unhealthy pressure and strain. The good news is that with the right mindset you can make the unmanageable feel manageable again. In this course from stress expert and performance coach Heidi Hanna, PhD, you can learn how to identify and conquer that overwhelmed feeling—so you can remain focused, productive, and in control in the face of whatever comes your way. Discover how to disrupt the stress circuit, cultivate calm and positive emotions, and take small, imperfect steps toward resolution. Heidi also provides tips for recognizing and preventing the overwhelm, so it doesn’t get out of control the next time you have too much to do.

Sleep is Your Superpower (multiple, short LinkedIn Learning videos, 34 minutes total)

  • Sleep is mandatory. You can’t outsource it and you can’t negotiate it—and it has a powerful impact on everything you do while you’re awake. So why not build habits to optimize your sleep and live your best life? Learn how to make sleep a priority and take steps to achieve sleep wellness. The Sleep Ambassador®, Nancy Rothstein, shares tips for optimizing sleep and performing at your best in work and life. Learn how to prioritize sleep, assess your sleep, create the right sleep environment, and adopt strategies to fall asleep and stay asleep. Nancy offers concrete, practical advice based on research and science—so you can master sleep as your superpower.

Article Resources for Working Remotely

On Leadership

On Remote Teams

On Work/Life Balance

On Health & Wellness

Podcast Resources for Working Remotely

On Leadership

  • HBR IdeaCast: Adjusting to Remote Work During the Caronavirus Crisis (28:51)
    • Tsedal Neeley, a professor at Harvard Business School, says that there are simple ways leaders can help their employees stay productive, focused, and psychologically healthy as they work from home during the current global pandemic. The right technology tools and clear and constant communication are more important than ever. She recommends that managers do an official remote-work launch, carefully plan and facilitate virtual meetings, and pay extra attention to workers' behavior. For individual contributors, it's critical to maintain a routine but also embrace flexibility, especially if you're in the house with family.
  • HRSA Podcast with Erin Collier on Compassionate Communication

On Remote Teams

On Work/Life Balance

  • HBR IdeaCast: Working Parents, Let Go of the Idea of Balance (26 mins)
    • Stewart Friedman, organizational psychologist at The Wharton School, and Alyssa Westring, associate professor at DePaul University’s Driehaus College of Business, say it’s a mistake for a working parent to think of career and home life as competing interests that have to be balanced. Their research shows how many leadership skills apply to parenting, and vice versa. The professors explain how individuals can stop making tradeoffs and instead find sustainable ways to advance their careers and also parent more effectively. Friedman and Westring are the authors of the book "Parents Who Lead: The Leadership Approach You Need to Parent with Purpose, Fuel Your Career, and Create a Richer Life.”
  • NPR The Caronavirus Crisis: Caronavirus Triple Duty: Working, Parenting, and Teaching from Home (4 mins)
    • Yuki Noguchi, Correspondent, Business Desk
    • Article included

On Health and Wellness

  • NPR-Take Care: Latest in Health—Step Off the Treadmill, Hike Into the Great Outdoors (3:46)
    • For many Americans, an exercise routine looks like a lot of time indoors — treadmills, ellipticals, weights and more — but as one researcher can attest, the benefits of taking that workout outside, especially if it's for a hike through nature, can be more beneficial than exercise confined to gyms and homes. Dr. James Navalta , from the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM), is a fellow and associate professor in the department of kinesiology and nutrition science at the University of Nevada Las Vegas.

App Resources for Working Remotely

On Health & Wellness

  • The Smiling Mind
    Smiling Mind is a unique tool developed by psychologists and educators to help bring balance to your life. Practice your daily meditation and mindfulness exercises from any device.

COVID- 19 Resources