Water cooler talk isn't just for the office; managers should use check-in time to ask about remote workers' personal life, families and hobbies to keep up morale. (Photo: Shutterstock)

It's laudable that companies are now letting more employees work from home to lessen the threat from COVID-19 – but for the next pandemic, they should upskill employees ahead of time to work more collaboratively.

Corporate trainer VitalSmarts surveyed more than 1,000 adults, roughly half executives and managers, and the other half employees, on what their organizations are doing to mitigate the outbreak. A third of the respondents say their organization has a plan in place they are confident about and 43 percent have a basic plan—even if it is "hastily assembled."

Related: Employers mobilizing to implement coronavirus emergency response plans

Regarding remote work, 28 percent of respondents say their employer has already revised its work from home policy; 33 percent are participating in more online meetings; and 17 percent are conducting video-based meetings and sales calls. In addition, 43 percent of the respondents say their employer has also revised their organization's travel policy.

However, there might be some kinks in the process: more than one in five employees responding to the survey don't feel their team members have good enough collaboration habits to work effectively from home. Moreover, one in five leaders are either very unprepared or unprepared to manage remote teams, the employee respondents say.

While teams might quickly adapt to the current situation and find ways to work better together, for now, 65 percent of all of the respondents are concerned COVID-19 will impact their company's operations.

"The speed in which American businesses have responded to this outbreak is impressive," says Justin Hale, a training designer and researcher at VitalSmarts. "But if leaders aren't prepared to manage remote teams or if these teams don't have good communication and collaboration habits in place, the effects of this virus could disrupt team connectivity, morale and accountability — not to mention results."

Hale recommends seven best practices for managing remote teams:

• Frequently and consistently checking in with employees
• Using multiple means of communication
• Insisting on face-to-face or voice-to-voice interactions
• Listening more and micromanaging less
• Setting clear expectations
• Making managers readily available
• Using check-in time to ask about remote workers' personal life, families and hobbies to keep up morale

Jean-Marc Chanoine, head of strategic accounts and legal council at Templafy, says that employers also need to pay attention to their remote workers' tactical needs, particularly taking into consideration that internet speeds can be questionable for many employees. Employers should test software in low bandwidth environments before deploying.

Another important factor to consider is to assure document creation infrastructure is tight, Chanoine says. "When working from home, employees can't just walk up to their boss or colleagues and ask for help," he says. "Employers shouldn't assume employees have access to the right content — they should ensure it by automating most documents."

Lastly, the people making decisions on what software to adopt are often not close to the people experiencing the challenges.

"Decision-makers need to start paying attention to what employees actually need to be successful, Chanoine says.

Read more: 

• Remote work increasing, but technology, distractions stand in the way
• Remote work comes with its share of challenges
• Cyber threats increase as coronavirus drives more employees to work from home