Working From Home? 9 Tips to Staying Productive and Sane During These Difficult Times
Whether your business is new to remote working due to the numerous stay-at-home policies issued by most U.S. states to fight the coronavirus or accustomed to it, it can be hard to be productive working from home while also keeping your sanity.
Believe me, I can personally attest to this. I’ve worked from home for more than a decade now, and still struggle with certain aspects of it every day. It is very easy to form bad work-at-home habits. Here are some ideas and tips to help you and your employees work at home more effectively.
Create a space
You’ll be more productive if you can carve out a separate space in your home in which to work. That helps you separate your work space from your personal space and maintain some privacy.
This is even more important if you don’t live alone and are sharing space with other adults and/or kids. If that is the case, you need to establish some ground rules. Tell your kids when it’s okay to interrupt you and the best way to do it. If you have a separate room, put a small sign on the door, saying when it’s safe to come in. If you’re in a meeting, let everyone know they need to be quiet.
One business owner I know, struggles with the possibility his dogs will start barking when he tapes his podcasts. He once asked his wife to take the dogs for a ride while he was taping a particularly important episode.
If you don’t have a spare room, can you take over a guest room, part of the basement, or a little-used dining room? Someone I know converted their back porch from “junk room” to office space. You also should work from an ergonomic chair whenever possible. Experts will tell you not to work from the couch. They’re right—but in the spirit of full disclosure, even though I have a separate office, I sometimes work from my living room couch.
Establish a schedule
Set “office” hours and try to stick to them. If you’re the boss, it’s okay to tell your employees the times you expect them to be at work. But given the current situation, some may need extra flexibility.
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Take breaks
Incorporate breaks into your schedule, even if it’s just a quick stretch or walk around your house or apartment. Try for a five-minute break once an hour. If you can safely go outside for a short break, do so. If you can’t, check with your doctor to see if you need to add Vitamin D to your diet. And don’t forget to eat lunch.
Get equipped
Every business’s circumstances are going to be different here. What computers are your staff using? Work-issued secure machines or their personal computers? Whichever, you want to make sure your employees are keeping their work secure. You might want to investigate getting a VPN (virtual private network) service.
What equipment do you and your staff need to work from home productively? Will someone need a printer or copier? Will everyone be relying on their own cell phones? Do they have enough data? Ask your staff if they have what they need to get their jobs done? If not, can you order equipment or supplies online and send it to them?
Respond to your employees quickly
This is especially important if your company is new to remote working. Your staff is bound to have questions. Don’t keep them waiting too long. If you can’t respond immediately, a quick head’s up—“I’ll get back to you in 20 minutes”—can be helpful.
Stay in touch with your team
Luckily, there are a lot of tools that make it easy to stay connected, such as Slack, Skype, and Zoom. Many of these offer free options.
Not every communication needs to be about work. Many people are particularly stressed these days, so be sure to check in with your staff, even if it’s just to find out how they’re doing, or if there’s something they need to make their jobs easier.
Conference calls
There will be times you need to meet with your team or clients. Try to keep internal meetings to a minimum, prepare an agenda ahead of time, and distribute it to your staff. Have everyone sign on five minutes before the meeting starts to make sure you can start on time. There are plenty of meeting tools to choose from, again many with free plans that will suit your business.
Get happy
You don’t want to lose the social aspect of work. Consider holding virtual “happy hours” with your staff where you catch up on one another’s lives and let off some steam. Or have a Monday morning catch-up meeting where the agenda is more personal than business. Employees can easily feel isolated which hinders productivity.
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Reevaluate your work-at-home policies
Up until now, many small businesses have been reluctant to allow remote working, fearing, among other things, a loss of control. This is a good time to reconsider. According to a study from the SMB Group, Impact of COVID-19 on Small and Medium Businesses, “Due to new stay-at-home guidelines and mandates, 80% of SMBs with existing work-from-home programs are now expanding them as they try to keep their businesses going. Meanwhile, among the SMBs that lacked telecommuting options prior to COVID-19, 24% have now established them, and 29% plan to do so.”
The SMB Group believes more small businesses will adapt to working from home and make remote work a permanent aspect of their businesses.
I’ve read about a number of companies that have already done exactly that. One company tweeted they were so pleased with how their remote working plan is going, they’ve decided to convert to being a virtual business. The move, they say, will save them thousands of dollars on rent and other overhead costs.