A lot of people have found themselves thrust into the realm of remote-work, or “working from home” when they least expected it. This has resulted in a lot of confusion and decreased productivity among staff.
If you have found yourself in this situation and failing to adapt, you have come to the right place. As a team that specializes in helping companies implement IT solutions, we have been helping businesses implement remote work solutions for quite some time.
Based on this experience, we decided to compile a list of helpful tips that we’ve found are crucial to make for a smoother and easier adoption of the work-from-home approach. Whether you are a business owner who had to implement it overnight or a worker who had to adjust to this quickly, we have some good news.. adapting to a remote work environment isn’t necessarily a bad thing.
Over the years there has been an accelerating trend for businesses to move their processes to the cloud. The fact is that given enough time, most businesses will eventually have to adapt to this method of doing business or perish. This is simply inevitable. Most jobs will eventually be done primarily from home, and a lot of what people do in offices today will soon be done remotely. In other words, now is the ideal time to get your business ready and familiarise yourself with ‘the new norm.’
With that said, here are some ways to make the transition to work-from-home more manageable:
Ideally, your company would have started implementing work-from-home procedures gradually over the past few years, so you will have some experience with remote work. The tips that follow will help improve your experience and productivity immensely.
If on the other hand, your company is brand new to this process, then these tips will help you get started on the right track.
1) Utilise better task and process organisation.
If your company has not yet implemented the right IT solutions to help structure your work-from-home, there are two things you can do.
– Inform your manager that they can get in touch with anspired and we can help them implement the correct procedures to ensure a smooth transition and have you up and running in no time!
– In the meantime, set up some organisational and accountability processes to suit your role. Set yourself some daily goals to help keep on track and smash them!
2) Use the right software to add back the collaboration element.
Right now, some of the fastest-growing software companies in the world are those that produce different kinds of collaboration software.
It’s not just Slack, Trello and Asana which most of us have heard of. This is a large industry with hundreds of very successful solutions. This is for two very simple reasons:
– Businesses have been adding more work-at-home options and expanding their base of remote workers for a while now. It is one of the fastest developing changes in the business world.
– As people move to working at home or on the go, they find they need to add back some of that collaboration element associated with the office. This is where collaboration software comes into play. It allows you to easily and intuitively work together with your colleagues without having to be in the same office.
With that being said, if your company hasn’t provided you and your colleagues with access to such software, suggest that they contact anspired for help with implementing cloud solutions that support the move to a remote-working environment. We guarantee you will find this far more productive than coordinating over the phone, messenger or whichever method you are currently choosing to use.
3) Set official hours and a work dress-code.
This one might sound weird to some, but it really works well. One of the reasons that adapting to a work-from-home context can be difficult to some – is that you do not perceive it as a work environment.
Taking some of the pillars that you associate with work and transferring them to your home environment helps a lot.
Now, this is not to say you have to use the exact same hours as you did at work when it is not mandated. It does, however, help a lot if your mind categorises your home differently during working hours.
The same is true in terms of the clothes that you wear. You don’t have to impose on yourself the same dress code you had in the office, however, having a different set of clothes for “work” and “not work” really does help set your mind straight.
4) Add breaks in a planned and purposeful manner.
There’s a reason that good workplaces include structured breaks. As paradoxical as it sounds, the more breaks you have (up to a point), the more “real work time” you will engage in. This is for the very simple reason that your mind is incapable of focusing on something beyond a certain amount of time. At least not at full capacity.
If you do not add the breaks in a planned manner, your productivity will just keep dropping and you might find you are getting less done.
If you work at an office and the breaks are part of the job itself, then all of this happens without any effort on your part. When at home, however, you’re at danger of falling into a “long-drawn-out session of low-level semi-work”.
This is a phenomenon where you work for 10 hours straight in an unfocused manner and get less done than if you had worked for 2 hours in a focused manner. It involves the type of “work” where you are writing a work-related document and checking out social media at the same time.
It is much wiser to have clear work blocks separated by non-work breaks during which you can do all this other stuff. Have a Facebook break, it’s ok. Better to plan for it rather than letting it lower your productivity.
5) Consider adding short walks or other activity.
This is something that a lot of people forget about when they think of their office environment. It isn’t just that you do work in a space that isn’t your home in different clothing. You also have to physically travel to that space, something we think of as merely the act that takes us to the office and back. What we forget however is that this involves motion and going out. This act itself really helps with giving you a mental reset. When you are at home it is much easier to get into physical stagnation that consequently impacts your productivity.
One good idea is to take regular breaks and move your body. Incorporate short walks, stretching, and even basic exercises like lunges. Drink plenty of water and remember the importance of respite from your desk.
6) Be patient, it takes time.
If you are used to working in an office and working from home is not natural or productive yet, that’s fine. Consider that it takes time, and the more patient you are with yourself, the sooner you will adapt to it.
We hope these tips allow for a smoother and easier transition to working from home. And remember, if your company needs assistance with moving business processes to the cloud in a way that makes remote work easier – Get in touch with us.
1300 267 747
sales@anspired.com.au
www.anspired.com.au