How to set your staff up to succeed working from home
Enablis takes a look at how business leaders can support their staff to succeed when working from home. And we also provides tips on how staff can be empowered while working at home and remotely with the right collaboration tools.
In a recent article from Smart Company, they discuss how organisations can increase the success of working from home.
The article talks about the importance of regular communication, particularly using video conferencing, as this will help to ensure that tasks are properly managed and that information and knowledge is transferred successfully.
Effective and easy to use collaboration tools are extremely important when your workforce is working remotely either at home or from another location – as it’s key to ensure efficiency and also to reduce social and professional isolation for these staff members to be happy and productive in their roles.
For organisations used to managing based on visibility and presence, letting go of traditional ideas of how to manage and focusing on output is important.
Management tips for your team Working from Home
Use the right messaging and video technology to stay connected
Make sure you have one video technology that offers a user experience where voice and video calls can be made natively from the same platform.
Anyone working from home longer than a few weeks can start to feel a little isolated from other team members and the rest of the company. Having a short daily catch up at the start of the day and set meeting schedules will ensure your teams are communicating.
It’s important that you have video conferencing, instant messaging and calling technology that works effectively, is easy to use and is of high quality to maintain open communication channels for staff and external partners and customers.
Use a good quality headset
As you will be using collaboration tools for video calls, voice calls and online chats, you really need to invest in quality headphones that have a mic, noise cancelling features and also Bluetooth capability.
Have a dedicated home workspace set up
When working away from the office one factor to ensure a productive workday is to make sure that you are set up with an office at home. Just because you’re not physically in the office doesn’t mean it’s time to work on the lounge chair or at the dining room table.
It’s essential that your workspace is in an area that is not used for downtime and leisure time like the lounge room. Be sure to have a desk that is the right height, a keyboard that is suitable and an office chair that is comfortable and provides the right back support just like you would require in the office.
Be sure to work when you know you are productive
Working from home takes discipline and also motivation so when working from home for weeks at a time make sure that you work on key tasks and priorities when you know you are the most productive to get the job done. Look to complete short easily actionable tasks when you don’t need to focus as much.
Make sure you allocate time for your more difficult tasks when you are in the right frame of mind to successfully get them done.
Set realistic work hours and finish on time each day
While working from home the minutes and hours seem to fly by as there’s often less interruptions than in the office. While working on deadlines and tasks you can easily get caught up in what your doing so make sure you don’t lose track of time and that you have set work hours each day. Be sure to finish on time so your work life balance does not turn into working at home all day then through the night.
Make sure you take short breaks
Even though most people have less distractions working from home we sometimes forget to have lunch at the usual time or get up and walk around for a stretch. Taking breaks helps you remain productive – did you know that people who work for 52 minutes at a time, then have a break for approximately 15 minutes are often more productive?
For your staff to work effectively and productively from home or from any remote location you can use your existing MS O365 service to reduce the complexity of separate collaboration systems, meet security and compliance demands easily, and enjoy more financial flexibility with MS Teams voice calling, video calling and chat.
To understand how simple, it is to use MS Teams Voice Calling click here to chat with an Enablis Voice expert now.