Giovanni Cascio
Jan 18, 2021
We have been working remotely for several years and would like to share our experience to help everyone get off to a successful start working from home.
Time Schedule
In home office, one is often confronted with distractions - even those that one can only avoid to a limited extent, such as children, partners or the neighbors. But you also tend to distract yourself - shopping, chatting or doing the dishes before you get down to work. That's why it is crucial to set up a schedule that defines working hours, breaks and the end of your working day. This clearly defined schedule should also be shared with family and roommates to ensure optimal focus during working hours.
Favor voice and video
The benefits of video or voice calls are often ignored but are essential for a functioning remote team. Using these calls helps to exchange more naturally, enabling one to assess colleagues' mood and respond to it accordingly. Furthermore, knowing that one can receive a video or voice call at any time automatically changes the working posture. People are more willing to provide a healthy work environment and a tidy appearance. This counteracts - as harsh as it sounds - the neglect within your own home and the associated loss of productivity.
Provide clear goals and responsibilities
It is essential to give your employees clearly defined tasks and set goals. This helps the individual immensely in planning the working day. From the view of an employer, it is no longer possible to look over every employee's shoulder, which makes it all the more important to hand over responsibility to and not to fall into a control compulsion.
Routines
With the elimination of commuting and office hours, the daily routine breaks down for most people. To counteract this, alternative routines should be introduced. Regular video calls with the entire team, presence and absence - good morning, good evening! - or spending the breaks on fixed days together in video calls.
Remove Distractions
Cell phone off. In home office, one is often disturbed and distracted by frequently appearing notifications on the smartphone. There are simply no colleagues at home to keep an eye on you when you get distracted by your cell phone too often. The solution is to mute the smartphone and put it on the table face down so that even notifications on the screen are no longer a distraction or simply switch off the phone completely.
Flexible Working Hours
Every employee has a different natural sleep rhythm and organizes his or her working day differently. To ensure that there is still a fair exchange among the team members, flexible core working hours are preferable. While some people do their housework first and prefer to work in the evening or at night, the opposite is true for others. Regular video calls to which everyone has to appear are also helpful here.