Over the past year, millions of employees have transitioned to teleworking. Since the start of the coronavirus, traditional employees have been struggling to adapt to teleworking.
The coronavirus forced companies, schools, and volunteering centers to transition to online platforms. This unexpected shift to working from home has become the new normal and may last after the pandemic. It can be difficult to remain productive in your home and break your echo chamber, but by using teleworking tips you can stay on track.
COVID-19 has played an important role in normalizing working from home. Work form home models are also safe and good for the companies. Teleworking has reduced companies’ overhead costs and is a more ecologically sound solution as it reduces individuals’ daily carbon footprint by allowing them to work from home.
The mandatory work-from-home orders have revolutionized office work. Companies have begun to develop long-term teleworking business models.
Teleworking Tips of the Trade
The opportunity to telework can change someone’s routine drastically. Working from home can allow you to optimize your time and better manage your work-life balance.
It can be difficult to adapt to working from home. By seeing advice on making a smooth transition you can make sure that you stay effective. We have some of the top tips and tools for teleworking.
Set Up Your Office
The ability to spend all day in bed with your laptop in streaming Netflix in the background may sound very relaxing. But laying in bed all day will surely inhibit your productivity.
The first step in effectively working from home is to find your workspace. By setting up your home office you’re giving yourself a location that you know is for focusing.
Once you found the location that you want to build your home office it’s important to find a few home office essentials:
- A desk or workspace
- Proper lighting
- An ergonomic chair
- Good internet connection
- Secondary monitor
Once your home office is fully set up you can get to work.
It is important when you are working to ensure that your equipment is up to date. Transitioning to working teleworking is the perfect opportunity to upgrade your technology to a more durable desktop or laptop which is suited with a lot of storage and a high-speed processor.
Privacy
While setting up your home office it is important to make sure that you find a location where you can maintain privacy. Since most family members are homebound and daycares are closed down due to the virus, finding a private space to do your business is essential.
It is easy to get distracted with kids, roommates, or family so it is important to find a private space to set up your home office so you can avoid distraction and focus all of your attention on work.
Teach Yourself Technology
Transitioning outside of a home office with familiar software can be a big transition.
It seemed as if overnight everything transitioned to online meetings, virtual task organizers, and figuring out remote access to your work network. It’s important not to fall behind on all of the transition documents and tools that your company is provided you to work from home.
It’s also vital that you don’t feel like you can’t ask questions, that you already need to know everything. Transitioning to working from home is new for everyone and companies would much rather you ask a question during an internal company conference call than breach private company information on accident later on.
Set Your Daily Calendar
Staying motivated outside of your cubicle or in your office can be very difficult. It can be easy to forget about deadlines that are sitting in your inbox without that face-to-face reminder of a company environment.
It is important that you set a daily calendar and stick with it. You can start every day by making a task list and mapping out your schedule. Ensure that you are still taking your lunch break but are also scheduling meetings and putting in your nine to five.
By setting your daily calendar you are able to set goals and monitor your progress on them. Companies want to continue to see tangible progress coming from employees, especially during this transition to teleworking.
Play the Part
At first, making the transition to working from home can feel like a day off. However, if you look at teleworking through this lens then you will be lacking in productivity and not effectively spending your time.
Maintaining some resemblance of normalcy during your workday can help you to stay on task. Even from home, you need to play the part.
Dress Professionally
One of the best ways to make you feel motivated and ready for work is to dress the part. If the role you are playing is professional Netflix watcher keep on the sweats and stay in bed. However, if you are looking to be a successful employee start your day with a shower and a fresh set of business casual.
Getting dressed every day for work does not mean that you need to invest in a new power suit or put on your heels to sit at home. Apart from virtual presentations and one on one zoom meetings comfortable clothing is entirely acceptable.
Getting dressed in the morning can help to put you in a productive mindset and become a helpful morning ritual to get you prepared to start the day.
Keep Office Hours
Most companies don’t require face-to-face interaction or any form of live virtual check-in and some provide the ability to truly make your own hours. It can be easy to opt into sleeping in and getting out of a standard routine.
In order to maintain accountability and keep on schedule, you should map out time for company calls and to work on projects. In order to avoid growing into the habit of procrastination maintaining regular office hours can help to keep you productive, even when working from home.
Tools for Teleworking
Transitioning to teleworking and the different online platforms and tools that companies use can be a challenging task. By learning to use the different common teleworking tools you can be one step ahead and even help implement new technologies to help your company work more effectively. The mandatory work-from-home orders have revolutionized office work. Companies have begun to develop long-term teleworking business models and invest in work from home monitoring software.
Using the Cloud
The cloud enables users to access the same files from different devices at the same time. By uploading files to a cloud rather than a desktop device they are able to be accessed and shared more easily. It’s beneficial to use different digital clouds to share resources for collaboration on projects across the company.
Cloud products such as Google G Suite can be used to share projects across an internal company network. Through the use of shared drives and documents, there are many ways to collaborate on projects and provide feedback.
Communication Tools
Working from home does not mean that you need to lose any of the communication that you typically have to do in the office. When working from home it is more important than ever that you develop strong communication habits between yourself and your colleagues.
The popularity of virtual meetings has grown. Companies have also begun to utilize programs such as Google Hangouts and Zoom. These virtual meetings do allow you to expand your network and meet more regularly with the firms and branches of your organization which may not be geographically convenient to work within a traditional work set up.
Companies have embedded live instant messaging features into their enterprise applications and implemented the use of communication applications such as Slack.
Task Manager
Companies have begun to use different task management software in order to improve productivity. The ability to manage distribute and monitor progress on tasks can help to improve accountability within a team.
Several of the top trending task management software being utilized by companies are ClickUp, Todoist, and Any.do. These project management software allow companies to juggle multiple teams and projects simultaneously and streamline communication on each through different threads.
Effective Teleworking
Working from home can be an opportunity where people no longer have to pick their career or family life. It was the spread of the coronavirus that brought about the industrial revolution of teleworking. Yet, teleworking has proven to be a sustainable solution that may last well past the duration of the COVID-19 crisis.
Following these teleworking tips can be a great experience for both the company and the employee. The mass movement from long commutes, five o’clock traffic, and cramped cubicles to home offices and business casual can help lead the way to a new generation of working.