Workplaceless Develops Program to Help Employees Navigate the Sudden Shift to Remote Work

Leading remote work education provider Workplaceless announced expanded access to the Unexpected Remote Work Course, the only training program specifically designed to support professionals managing unanticipated remote work situations.

To reduce the spread of COVID-19, companies and individuals are confronted with rapid, unplanned transitions to remote work. They’re faced with unforeseen challenges, such as new communication norms, adjustments to performance management and output, employee health and wellness issues, and new standards of leadership. While the transition to a remote work model would normally require intentional collaboration, organization, and implementation, the need to maintain business continuity in uncertain times calls for a streamlined approach to the urgent issues related to such a rapid organizational change. 

Drawing on their expertise about the challenges of and solutions for transitioning teams to remote work, Workplaceless has created a resource that specifically focuses on the key factors that will help teams move forward after a rapid and unexpected change to remote work.

“We created the Unexpected Remote Work Course based upon our years of experience and our knowledge of the realities currently affecting our clients and the remote community,” said Tammy Bjelland, Workplaceless CEO. “As companies have been rapidly shifting to remote work as a way to maintain business continuity during this crisis, we are seeing firsthand the struggles faced by a workforce suddenly adjusting to remote work without any clear policies or best practices in place. We are in a unique position to help. We first developed a simplified checklist and opened up access to some of our existing resources then realized there was a critical gap in information that’s relevant for brand-new and sizable distributed teams.”

Workplaceless first introduced the new curriculum to support existing clients and ensure the content was valuable to the business continuity of teams suddenly working from home. The course is affordable to deliver at scale, can be implemented quickly, and completed within 60 to 90 minutes. Modules walk employees through strategies to succeed in unexpected remote work with the outcome of compiling a remote work guide. 

“Given our relationship with Workplaceless, it only made sense that we would lean on them during a crisis,” said Mardi Kaplan and Karol Blankenship, Training and Development Managers at Toyota Financial Services. “We began our partnership with Workplaceless in support of a large-scale field sales reorganization, in which more than 250 employees transitioned from an office setting to a work from home environment. With the news that our entire workforce would begin working from home as a result of COVID-19, we knew we needed to support their unique needs as quickly as possible. The Workplaceless team shared their Unexpected Remote Work course, and we knew it could benefit the broader organization. We are looking forward to hearing how it supports our employees.”

Workplaceless developed this program to answer the urgent need and will continue to support the supply and demand of sustainable remote work opportunities as companies integrate strategic remote work policies beyond the current situation. This course builds on their existing portfolio of aligned programs, including self-paced courses for remote workers, distributed team managers, and HR professionals, as well as workshops that address specific needs of remote teams, such as burnout, virtual team building, and remote hiring.