Due to the recent COVID-19 outbreak, there have been drastic changes in our everyday lives. Those of us who were used to a routine of breakfast-commute-office-commute back home have now found ourselves with our daily routines completely thrown off by the idea of working from home, which has become mandatory for companies around the globe while we try to stay productive and protecting ourselves and others at the same time.
Due to the uncertainty of how long the protective measures like obligatory quarantine and social distancing are going to last, we must focus on creating a working environment at home that doesn’t compromise our productivity. There is no reason why our delivery, commitment, and performance should be affected by the environment change (easier said than done, we know.)
Home offices have always been looked at with one raised eyebrow since its principle is extremely far from what the corporate world has been used to, it challenges the practices that have been applied since forever and pushes both directors and employees to make major shifts in the way they approach work.
Backed by studies
One study co-penned by Nicholas Bloom, an economic analyst, and published by the Quarterly Journal of Economics from the University of Stanford studied the behavior of a group of employees working strictly from home during 9 months, one interest behind this study was to take a deeper look into how working from home can help avoid long commutes and develop a better work-life balance.
The research concluded that providing employees with the opportunity to take control of creating their own working space at home and working under an environment that they controlled resulted in a 13% increase in performance and a 50% drop in quit rates amongst employees.
It’s a different situation
Times are tough and the idea of working from home at the moment wasn’t a personal choice but a public health obligation and many people who feel like they perform better when they have the structure of a corporate facility might be finding themselves in a tough situation while they become accustomed to the idea of being at home all day with possible distractions like their children who have moved to virtual learning, roommates who are probably working from home as well and family members.
Not everything’s bad though, considering how long we are used to spend commuting and dealing with traffic we might now find more time to either invest in our work, our projects apart from work or spending time with our loved ones.
The best way we can make sure working from home during this global crisis doesn’t affect our work performance and wellbeing in general (maintaining stable mental health is key to deal with a quarantine) is by applying good practices and defining some rules.
Keep communicating
When the whole team is under one roof its pretty easy to communicate because you can easily swing by your coworker’s desk and do quick information exchanges and then go on about your day, easy right? Now, with everyone working remotely you have to rely on chat messages and emails which can most certainly slow things down.
Talk with your team and express the importance of staying on top of the communication channels to make sure no one is stuck on a blocker, also include calls as much as possible, probably one quick meeting first thing in the morning and one at the end of the day can help keep a good communication flow.
Create a routine
Just because you’re not doing your daily commute to the office doesn’t mean you can’t have some structure during the day, getting up from bed just to go sit in your home desk or dining table can feel odd but it doesn’t have to if we still find ways to have some normality in the midst of this.
Homeworkers report that they don’t usually go straight to work upon waking up, they try to take up to an hour before their workday starts to have breakfast, talk with their roommates/family, take care of their pets or other home tasks. Starting the day off with a clear view of what we’re going to be doing each day helps keep the mind occupied on achieving each step of our routine every day.
Space is important
Not everyone has the chance to have a dedicated office in their house so trying to make the best of what we have is crucial to make sure we can maintain a good level of productivity even when we don’t have our usual set up.
First thing’s first: Don’t lay down in bed with your laptop, just don’t. There’s never a good outcome of this and working from home doesn’t mean we don’t have to keep a level of professionalism. Find a spot in your place where you can sit on a flat surface and it feels as close as possible to your office desk, if there are distractions because you have roommates or family that lives with you then a good pair of headphones will help.
Rootstack debuted their first podcast episode and we touched on the subject of creating a home office successfully. Give it a listen and learn how to excel and working from home with the tips of an expert.
You can either listen on Youtube or Spotify.
