The Covid-19 pandemic has required many museum professionals to work remotely, some for the first time. These resources offer guidance on:
- Best practices for virtual workplaces
- Improving understanding of work from home
- Safe and healthy boundaries and expectations
Best Practices (General)
Working from home Best Practices Guide
- Myths
- Tips on how to succeed as a remote worker
- Tips in finding remote work
AAM’s 13 Tips for Working Remotely A general and quick guide to set you up for successful remote work.
Strategies and tools for staying productive
- Remote work culture
- Engagement strategies
- Systems of records
- Skills
Understanding and setting realistic expectations for remote work A pre-recorded discussion on challenges to working remotely and how different generations approach this.
Free workshops:
Coursera:
“Organize yourself as a remote worker or self-employed”:
- Create a browser work persona, add task and productivity management tools
- Use communication and productivity tools and techniques to manage shared work
- Add focus and meditation with appropriate tools and techniques
- Lead in a remote environment
- Build a remote organizational culture and practices
- Assess teams’ and managers’ readiness and preparation for remote work
- Create a foundational strategy for executing a remote transformation
“Remote Working during Covid-19”
- Experiences of remote working
- Ways to support yourself and your colleagues
- Top tips for staff working from home
- Ways to stay connected with your team during COVID-19
Technical training:
Global Integration: a global training and consulting company specializing in virtual teams, matrix management and agile & digital ways of working.
- Virtual Meetings Training: Learn how to facilitate regular interaction and engagement using online tools, how to run interactive, large-scale live events, and participatory training workshops. A series of short videos also offers practical tips on how to improve the way you look, sound, and behave on video.
- Global Leadership: Learn how to create engaging communication and online meetings with diverse groups of colleagues, and how to lead remotely.
- Hybrid Teams Training: Understand the advantages and disadvantages of working in hybrid teams, improve productivity, and advice on being explicit about work expectations.
Getting the most out of Zoom:
Zoom Support center: Offers daily webinars for free, live training. They also have a few recorded webinars on this page.
Zoom Blog: Frequent tips, advice, and updates. Here is a really good blog that introduces new software integration while also providing more helpful tools to help your organization. For example, Zoom is providing integration with numerous apps that offer meeting transcription, education & learning development, customer relation management, meeting transcription, collaboration, and calendering & scheduling.
Zoom meeting training references guide
Software guides:
Make Use Of (MUO) Provides the latest news on software you use such as Microsoft Suite, useful guides for how to use it, and advanced guides for features you didn’t know existed.
Apps and software:
Productivity:
Trello: Organize/prioritize tasks and projects with boards, lists, and cards. (Free with additional paid features)
Meister Task: A team task managing software with free and paid versions. Create tasks, recurring task feature, checklists, time-tracking, and integrate with other programs such as Slack, Outlook, Google Calendar, Hangouts, Toggl, and more.
Toggl: Time tracking app where you can record how much time is spent on projects. Provides integration with other apps and weekly reports. (Free with additional paid features).
Monday.com: Manage projects, assign and track tasks, collaborate with others, automate routine tasks. Provides integration with other software such as bloomerang. (Free with additional paid features).
Google Docs/Spreadsheets: Work on the same document or spreadsheet with others at the same time. You can edit, comment, and suggest. (Free)
Google Calendar: Set your office hours, share your schedule with other staff members to help each other collaborate, understand each other’s workload, and keep track of each other’s schedules.
Coveo: Provides a virtual workspace with timelines, software integration, chat features, and more (Similar to Monday but with different integrations).
Communication:
Signal: IM app which is secure and encrypted. Also supports video calls.
Whats App: Share photos, videos, documents over IM or group chat. Also supports voice calls.
Zoom and Whereby: Video meeting tools with screen share. (Free with additional paid features).
Slack: Business communication channels that can be separated by project.
Mental Health:
Downdog: Yoga app that provides visuals for beginners.
NTC: 190 workouts for all fitness levels.
Smiling Mind: Developed by psychologists and educators to provide daily meditations and mindfulness exercises
