NOTE: This article is one in a series of excerpts from the forthcoming book, Work From Home (Like a Boss), by Üma Kleppinger.

Thousands of small and medium businesses are suddenly facing the growing reality that their workers are likely to have to work from home in the foreseeable future.

The global pandemic known as COVID-19 has many people concerned about how to balance health and safety in the workplace with continuing to make the donuts or widgets or apps or whatever your business is engaged in.

These are uncertain times and that uncertainty brings unique challenges—like how to embrace and create a functional and thriving remote work environment.

For over 20 years I have been self-employed. I've worked remotely that entire time, with a few minor exceptions. Even now, my business is just me as the creative director and client services manager, with a 100% remote team of collaborators who are matched with specific projects. For some clients, I'm not only their creative director but also the marketing strategist, web designer, copywriter and editor.

The gig economy has been gaining momentum, particularly in the last decade or so. As of 2020, that momentum just got a dose of rocket fuel in the form of this extremely virulent coronavirus. Suddenly millions in the US and around the world are discovering working from home is not only possible, but necessary.

Over the next few weeks, I'll be sharing excerpts from my forthcoming book, Work from Home (Like a Boss) to set employers' minds at ease, helping you make sure your suddenly remote staff can stay on top of what's needed to keep business moving along and help workers adjust to working from home. We'll kick things off today with one of the most critical aspects of this way of working: communication.

Get your communication practices and policies dialed-in and documented.

If you don't yet have a business communication protocol for remote work, get on it!

Establish your preferred channels and methods of communication. To smooth things out for all concerned, think about:

Telephone

Have your office phone provider forward all calls to worker's mobile phones. Better yet, use a service like Line2, Sideline, or Google Voice to add a second phone number to worker's smartphones so they can better separate business and personal calls. These apps are much less expensive than supplying workers with "work" phones; prices range from free to $10 a month and offer all the features you'd expect from a second phone line—texting, voice, voicemail, etc.

Once everyone has the technology they need to work on company business, establish some guidelines for how communication should happen. When should a call be an email? When should an email be a call? And when should it be something entirely different—like a video conference or a company chat room?

Video Conferencing

Not being able to see visual communication cues—particularly when communicating around challenging topics or when presenting feedback, for example, can be problematic. Researchers have found that only about 7% of communication comes from the words we speak, while 38% comes from tone of voice, and a whopping 55% is body language, which includes facial expressions.

Younger workers are more likely to readily adopt video conferencing and video calls because the use of video is already prevalent among digital natives.

Older workers and introverts might be less comfortable on video (I know. I can't stand seeing myself on video!) but with a little practice you can get comfortable with it. Who knows, you may even begin to prefer it!

There are so many providers who make it relatively easily to onboard new users. Zoom and GoToMeeting are strong contenders for small to medium sized businesses, while enterprise-level organizations of those with large teams working collaboratively are served better by Cisco Webex.

Group Collaboration and Chat Rooms

Slack is probably the best-known group collaboration software on the market. It's reliable and fairly simple to onboard and use, and offers an astonishing number of integrations, such as MailChimp, SalesForce,  and project management tools like Basecamp and Trello.

The downside is Slack gets pricey for bigger companies with lots of team members. Most group collaboration platforms charge per user, and there are definitely some less costly options on the market, although they are less likely to have the thousand-ish integrations Slack offers.

Accept that business-as-usual is far from usual and embrace change.

Managing remote workers can be frustrating for many business owners who prefer person-to-person contact in a traditional office environment. And getting all these puzzle pieces in place can seem daunting if you haven't already adopted some of these tools and practices. But you can create a winning remote worker policy that protects not only the health of your valued employees but also the health of your business.

Perhaps the best advice I could offer anyone dealing with setting up their small business for remote work is this:

Take a deep breath to pause and ground yourself. These are trying times and emotions are running high. Give yourself—and your workers and co-workers—some time to get settled into these new rhythms. Many of us will have vulnerable parents, grandparents and other loved ones at risk. Collectively and individually, we are vulnerable in ways that might actually be incredibly beneficial in the long run.