COVID-19 and working from home
With no doubt, the Covid-19 pandemic has developed a new normal in how people and societies function. The WHO’s calls to maintain a social distance and, in some cases, self-isolate has changed the way individuals work. Employers and employees are both facing the challenges of keeping safe whilst not compromising productivity. This especially becomes a bigger challenge when you have to reduce the number of employees at offices and other workplaces. This has led employers to start embracing the fact that employees can work from home.
Based on the US workforce data, remote work is on the rise. Based on the report, “State of the American Workplace,” 43 out of 100 American employees had at least spent some time to remotely work. Also, from the 2018 United States census, 5.2 percent of workers are based entirely at home. With the advent of Covid-19, more employees are working from home, therefore the need to learn how to effectively work from home while maintaining good physical and mental health.
Tools Required
Virtual Private Network (VPN): For secure communications when working outside your offices, VPN access becomes a necessity. It comes in handy in protecting the data of your company. There are two types of VPN tunneling depending on the choice of your company, full or split tunneling.
Conferencing and collaboration: working from home does not mean you stop working as a team, you can collaborate remotely through available platforms such as Zoom, Microsoft Teams, and Cisco’s Webex. These are used in bridging the communication gaps created by social distancing and people agreeable to hold meetings and collaborate on projects.
Productivity Suites: these are a combination of applications that aid in the creation, editing, and manipulation of data sets to get the work done. Software such as Libre Office, Microsoft Office, and many more allow multiple users to operate on shared environments for effective changes on a single document on a real-time basis.
Maintain Office Practices
Stick to Work Schedule: working from home makes people have their schedules, however, office hours should be adhered to. This helps one to maintain professional life from personal life. Keeping the schedule helps one to focus on both lives at the correct time while not neglecting the other.
Have breaks: working from home may tempt you to work from start to stop, however, it is recommended to make time for breaks. This, just like in the office, will make you refresh and clear your minds for a better-focused ad relaxed mind.
Keep office routine: