For many professionals, the opportunity to work from home full-time was always a remote (yes, pun intended) and unlikely possibility. Then, when the pandemic struck and offices were immediately closed across the country, it suddenly became our reality.
For some, working from home has created a lot of stress, and they find themselves wearing thin. Meanwhile, many others have come to prefer working from home and will likely view it as a preference or even a condition of employment moving forward.
Some degree of working from home is here for the long run, which is why we need the home to be as productive, effective and balanced a workplace as possible. So, what affects work life balance? Many factors, but here are 4 easy steps that will help your work-from-home employees thrive.
1. Clearly Carve Your Time into Chunks
Whether you live alone, with a partner and/or have kids, our homes are often filled with our favorite entertainments, hobbies and loved ones. However, during work hours these can easily become productivity-sapping distractions.
Time chunking (or “blocking,” if you prefer) is the key to keeping these distractions from taking over your day. Quite simply, time chunking involves dividing your workday into designated blocks during which you concentrate on a specific task or project.
How to be productive working from home
Create a to-do list for the day and block your time according to those priorities
Try to silence your phone, messaging apps, Twitter, etc. during specific blocks
Schedule breaks between blocks of time, because knowing you have an upcoming break for coffee, folding laundry or some other stress-relieving activity will help you stay focused throughout your blocks
2. Schedule Your Day According to the Current Reality
Just because it worked well for you to do certain tasks at certain times in the office doesn’t mean that same schedule is ideal when working from home. The office and the traditional workday were designed for the majority of people whom scientists call “morning larks,” because their natural circadian rhythm allows them to focus best during the morning rather than the afternoon and evening hours.
Chances are you’re a morning lark. Nevertheless, if your kids require more attention in the morning, you might find it necessary for your productivity (and your sanity) to schedule your lighter tasks for the morning and tackle the more concentration-heavy projects in the afternoon.
If you’re a night owl by nature, working from home might offer your best opportunity to shine. You might keep yourself available for calls and urgent needs during the day, and then dig in for your most productive work during the evening and night hours.
3. Get Comfortable with Video Conferencing and Use It Often
For many extroverts, human-to-human interaction is essential to survival, happiness and productivity. Moreover, 65% of the population are visual learners, which means we absorb and retain information better when we can hear and see.
Even for diehard introverts who learn best by hearing or doing, routine visual connection is essential to building rapport, maintaining relationships and collaborating effectively with colleagues.
That’s why scheduling video conferences is vital to work-from-home productivity. In fact, a recent study found that video participants learned 200% more on average than audio-only callers. So, schedule video calls often and routinely. Better still: consider a unified communications system that integrates secure video conferencing and collaboration tools for your employees.
4. Get a Unified Communications Solution and Maximize It
Now that you have achieved the points above:
1. Rearranged your schedule for working from home
2. Divided your time into productive blocks
3. Embraced video conferencing to stay in touch
You’ve satisfied your employees’ basic needs to work independently productively.
However, in order to productively work collectively as a team, they need the tools that enable remote collaboration. That’s why deploying a cloud-based unified communications platform will take your business to the next level.
At Gregg Communications, our techs – experts in all the top platforms – help our clients pick the right solution and get the maximum benefit from it now and later. Some of the features we recommend for dispersed teams include:
Outbound call routing to make and receive calls for multiple devices
Integration of voice, chat, video and screen sharing for productive work meetings
Remote access so that managers can provide supervision remotely
These 4 easy steps won’t just improve your employees work-from-home productivity, they will also improve output and morale back in the office.
Unlike other communications resellers, Gregg never hands you off to the vendor once the sale is complete. We guide and support you throughout the onboarding and training process so your expectations are met and exceeded.
So, help your employees embrace the first 3 work-from-home steps we outlined above. Then, give us a call (630-706-8222), email or reach out for more information and we’ll guide you through the 4th. Work-from-home is here to stay, so let’s equip your business to survive and thrive through whatever comes your way.