Organizations should constantly try to find the right mix of technology and culture to ensure a collaborative work environment.

Working from home is an option, which in recent times, has become a popular mode of working across the length and breadth of the world. However, with the current work scenario being impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, working from home has become a necessity. Let’s take a look at some of the points you should be keeping in mind to ensure a successful workday at home and how organisations can also take certain steps to ensure that business continuity isn’t affected by the recent transition…

Ensure your workday is as structured as it was in the office

Everyone is their own personal manager, when they are working from home. One needs to have a proper schedule as far as ensuring successful completion of tasks within the set timeline is concerned. Plan your meetings well in advance and also set reminders for allocating specific hours to certain tasks. This brings us to the next point, which is ensuring that you plan your week in advance.

Have a weekly prioritisation sheet

Knowing what you are going to focus on different days of the week as per priority is half the job done. Once you set the allocated timeline for each task, it becomes a natural instinct to stay committed to completing them and ensuring your productivity.

Have a work-life balance

With all the time saved from commuting, utilise those extra hours to spend some quality time with your family. Happiness in your personal life reflects in your work as well. So, maintain a balance.

Companies need to focus on these aspects

While transitioning to work from home mode, it is important to identify the areas which can hamper the employees’ work. Once that list is narrowed down, it is important to list down the tools needed for better collaboration and synchronization. Apart from the HR department, the teams need to support each other for delivering the best in the tasks that are allocated to the employees. Revisiting the policies and processes to suit the new working condition and making those quick transitions are crucial. Apart from that, taking care of employees' mindset is also part of the process for ensuring successful workdays at home.

Tech tools needed for ensuring successful workdays

For effective collaboration between team members, video meetings need to be conducted, data sharing is needed, a common dashboard of metrics needs to be in place and there needs to be a system where one can know what others are working on. This isn't a simple process. Slack is often used intensively by employees for official communication. It easily integrates with all other enterprise tools that are built for teamwork and productivity (Example - Gmail, Calendar, Zoom, Asana, etc). Other than that, most of the employees stay connected on WhatsApp and Zoom for quick chats and video meetings. Organisations should constantly try to find the right mix of technology and culture to ensure a collaborative work environment.

To sum up, if all the above-mentioned points are kept in mind, employers and employees will be able to ensure more successful workdays during these testing times. Happy working!

Disclaimer: The views expressed in the article above are those of the authors' and do not necessarily represent or reflect the views of this publishing house