PRofessional Solutions, LLC

As “work from home” status continues for many organizations due to COVID-19, team leaders are challenged with having to manage and motivate staffers remotely.

For more than 25 years, we’ve successfully placed some of our associates in remote assignments for our clients so we’d like to share what we’ve discovered works best when managing employees who work from home.

PRofessional Solutions’ Top Five Tips for Managing Your Team Remotely

1. Set goals, expectations and deadlines and review them regularly. Emphasize outcomes over processes, trying not to micromanage but instead allowing employees to complete their work in their own way as long as goals are met.
2. Establish regularly scheduled communication, both team meetings and one-on-one conversations. Use video chat when possible since email and text do not provide the nonverbal communication cues which may be necessary for employees to feel heard.
3. Be available to your team. Our associates tell us the greatest challenge they face on remote assignments is waiting for an answer from their project supervisor before they can move forward with their work. Enabling employees to see your daily calendar and establishing guidelines for the best way to reach you when it’s urgent will help them to be more productive.
4. Track employees’ progress. Ask team members to provide you with weekly written updates as to their progress towards achieving goals and finishing deliverables. Our clients find this type of reporting structure invaluable when managing remote assignments.
5. Provide feedback and offer encouragement. Making time for regular one-on-ones with employees to give constructive criticism and praise is always worthwhile. Setting a course correction early in a project is better than asking an employee to completely revise something after completion. Take advantage of video team meetings to acknowledge successes and celebrate both individual and team achievements.

Have a question about managing remotely or how to fill a gap in your staff? PRofessional Solutions is a resource to metro DC’s communications community, available for consultations and advice at no charge.

This article appeared in the July 2020 issue of “Smart Solutions”, PRofessional Solutions, LLC’s newsletter.

We’re professional communicators. We survey and design communications to motivate actions and measure outcomes. But do we do that internally, among our own teams?

Our work lives and behaviors have been interrupted and challenged in unprecedented ways by closures to mitigate the spread of COVID-19. Many jurisdictions and offices are now creating plans to allow re-opening, taking steps to make the work environment safer. But how do the employees in your organization view re-opening and returning?

In a recent webinar, the head of a local public relations agency described the thorough, painstaking and expensive steps to ensure the safety of the staff when re-opening the office. But in a video call with the full staff to share these extensive upgrades and safety measures, the owner was surprised and perplexed by the concerned, troubled faces looking back. Where was the enthusiasm for return expected from a generally young and healthy group?

An anonymous response follow-up survey found that the majority of the staff did not feel comfortable returning to the office yet, despite the owner’s care and preparation. How to proceed? The owner assembled a task force from all levels of the staff to develop and present their own, new plan for a staged return to the office. This is the plan they will implement and none of the staff will be pushed to return until they feel safe.

While the pressure to be creative and responsive has never been greater, the fundamentals of good two-way communication are still indispensable to helping us come through to the new work format on the other side of the crisis.

This article appeared in the June 2020 issue of “Smart Solutions”, PRofessional Solutions, LLC’s newsletter.

PRofessional Solutions, LLC has been an integral part of the metro DC communications community since 1994. Our PR professional associates can supplement your staff as needed or run an independent project. Reach out if you’d like to explore how we can help with a specific challenge.

An interview with PRofessional Solutions Founder and CEO Kate Perrin

Q: Do you recommend professional society membership to your PR colleagues?

A:  Absolutely! I encourage all professional communicators to find the right group and join no matter what their level of experience or area of expertise. A good professional society will offer programming for members at all levels and the benefits of membership are invaluable.

Q:  What do you consider the most important benefits of joining a professional society?

A:  I’ve found the three most important career-boosting benefits to membership are: 1) it fosters further development of professional skills and knowledge of tools and trends; 2) it expands your colleagues network for sharing information, ideas and support; 3) it provides a pool of potential employees and employers.

Q:  How has membership benefited you specifically?

A:  Professional society membership helped me launch PRofessional Solutions, LLC twenty-five years ago. The network of contacts I developed while serving as president of Washington Women in Public Relations (WWPR) provided me with an immediate pool of both prospective temps and clients, not to mention the level of support I received from my colleagues. My subsequent involvement as a board member of the International Association of Business Communicators (IABC) and active sponsor of the Public Relations Society of America National Capital Chapter (PRSA-NCC) have further expanded my network and been instrumental in the growth of my business.

Q:  What advice would you give to new members?

A:  Don’t just become a member, become an active member by joining a committee or volunteering for special programs and events, such as judging awards, moderating a panel or providing pro bono service. Attending monthly meetings is not enough when trying to build professional relationships with fellow members. The real networking takes place while working together on a project–and your skills are being enhanced at the same time.

The Public Relations Society of America’s National Capital Chapter (PRSA-NCC) has announced that Martha Boudreau and Pattie Yu will be inducted into the National Capital Public Relations Hall of Fame. Boudreau and Yu will be honored at the 50^th anniversary of PRSA-NCC’s Annual Thoth Awards Gala occurring on Thursday, October 18, 2018 from 6:00 p.m. – 9:30 p.m. at The National Press Club in Washington, D.C.

Lauren Lawson-Zilai, 2018 National Capital Hall of Fame Chair and PRSA-NCC vice president, released the announcement and said, “Both inductees are role models for their contributions to our profession, their ongoing support of colleagues in our industry and their local communities, their innovative and cutting edge campaigns on behalf of their clients, and their enduring impact on the PR sector.”

Recently a group of business colleagues and I had an amazing experience that had us buzzing – a beekeeping class at Miraval Resort in Arizona.

As business owners, it was impossible not to admire the bees’ single-minded pursuit of work in the interests of their community – work that also supports the crops that feed us and the animals that are part of our food chain!

An employer’s reaction to the ultimate work ethic of the bees is to wish, “If only humans were as dedicated as the bees!” But in the beekeeping class we also learned why employers need to have back-up plans and resources for when human workers don’t behave like bees.

Bees lack individual identity and exist only to serve the colony. That means you can’t expect your staff to be as focused as bees are, because:

1. Bees have no life outside of work! All worker bees are female and go through their short lives without partners, children, a need to do laundry or grocery shopping or sleep.
2. Worker bees change jobs without retraining. Worker bees seamlessly go through a series of vital jobs during their short lives of about six weeks: cleaning and polishing the cells for new eggs, nectar and pollen; disposing of dead bees; nursing baby bees; tending needs of the Queen Bee (the only bee to lay eggs); and, finally, foraging fields for nectar to turn into honey.
3. Bees never lose focus or take a break. Interrupt the bees to collect honey and they immediately go back to work. If they perceive a threat to the developing baby bees, the honey (the colony’s food!) or the hive, they will sting (and die!). But the instant the intruder is gone or an interruption is over it’s back to work.

But we humans need to take breaks, must learn new skills, have outside commitments, and move on to new jobs when it is our own interest.

That’s why PRofessional Solutions, LLC is “the bee’s knees”* when someone on your public relations staff goes on family leave, gives notice, or doesn’t have the skills a new for a new role.

* ”The bee’s knees” became a popular expression in the U.S. in the 1920’s meaning “the height of excellence”!

Twenty-three years ago Conservation International (CI) was our first client.  This week they made the temp we were currently providing them a permanent employee.

When we first collaborated PRofessional Solutions, LLC was just getting started and CI was a very young organization.  We’ve both matured.  For almost 30 years Conservation International has empowered people to protect the nature that we rely on for food, fresh water and livelihoods through cutting-edge science, innovative policy and global reach. 

It’s a great feeling to know the skilled communicators we’ve placed with them have helped grow that success.

PRofessional Solutions, LLC CEO Kate Perrin with Steve Winter, Adam Shapiro & Anthony Shop at 2014 “Book of Lists” party. Photo credit and special thanks to Capitol Communicator.

As May, our birthday month, winds down, we wanted to share one more special memory from our company’s 23-year history.

In 2014, PRofessional Solutions, LLC was recognized by the Washington Business Journal “Book of Lists” as being among the Top 25 Staffing Companies in the Washington, DC Metro area.

This was an exciting honor for a boutique staffing firm like ours!