Advice for the New Work From Home Employee

To keep our employees safe and to keep operations going, we are putting things in place to have many more virtual employees next week. Here we are configuring a bunch of laptops, phones and headsets (and backpacks to store everything).

We have a handful of virtual employees that have been here for 5 to 12 years and I asked them to give some advice to all those that may be working from home for a period of time. Below are their comments, perhaps there is some useful advice for you or your employees who find themselves working from home.

From Maureen (12 year WFH Employee)

• The most important thing for me from day 1 has been this: act exactly like you are working in an office. Make sure you have a separate and adequate workspace (i.e. not the couch, kitchen table, etc), start and finish on time, don't get distracted with "home" stuff just because you're at home, etc.
• Make sure your family/friends understand you are working just like you are an in office. Many people assume "work from home" means "flexible" and don't respect your need for space, quiet, etc.
• If you have young kids, make sure you have childcare even though you're at home. You can't possibly take care of them while working. If they are older and can take care of themselves, make sure they 1000% understand that you are "at the office" and truly unavailable. Put a sign on the door or something!
• Get a comfortable chair, ergonomic keyboard/mouse, good speakers - whatever you need to make using your home office setup feel comfortable. It's worth it.
• Enjoy working in your jammies, and enjoy the extra time you get back in your life from not having to commute!!

From Vanessa: (12 year WFH Employee)

• My advice for working from home is to be in a quiet place away from other people home. Preferably in a room with a door. Treat it just like you would if you were in the warehouse office. 

From Dario (12 year WFH Employee)

• Have a quiet area for yourself
• Focus on work and be productive, don’t take it for granted someone is always watching
• After work do something fun, bike ride, walk, not so much the gym take your mind off work.
• Set your alarms in the morning and have a backup alarm. I use Alexa to wake me up, and then the 2nd alarm is my phone.

From Khurram (9 year WFH Employee)

• It requires more discipline in working from home vs office because you tend to get distracted and get a feeling of relaxation which will impact your productivity so it’s important to keep focus or you’ll end up spending more than 8 hour working.
• Your kids may get excited if they have never seen you working from home before so it’s important to have a separate room with a door that can be locked from inside.
• Best to wear headset throughout the day to avoid noise.

From Matt:(9 year WFH Employee)

• Dedicated space if possible to avoid distractions or noises from anybody else that might be home or pets
• Pick a location close to a bathroom - saves time if you need to use the restroom vs running across your house
• If possible make sure the equipment is connected by Ethernet and not WiFI, just overall more reliable
• Download Evernote - saves using stickies or notepads and syncs to multiple devices
• Have at least two monitors, makes is much easier to have chats up + main screen with email/backend/tickets, etc - way easier to multitask, mentioning this as they might be used to sitting nearby and just talking face to face
• Creature comforts - Probably not huge unless it ends up being extended but a good office chair is a must since you'll be sitting in it all day. I also recommend a Mini fridge depending on their location if far from the kitchen, for me it saves me from running downstairs to grab a drink. 
• Routing side - enable QoS if other family is home, make sure high priority for phone system so someone else at home doesn't mess up your traffic flow

From Valerie: (8 year WFH Employee)

• Set yourself a space of your own where you can be undisturbed, as much as possible. This can help keep you productive and not distracted by home situations.
• Pretend you're not really at home when in your office space. You can "go home" for lunch.
• ?Ask our support team for help testing and setting up your home-office space hardware if needed.

From Pat: (3 year WFH Employee)

• Advice for being a remote employee, I would say making sure that you are communicating with the team is the key factor, 100 percent of the time being available. Notes for yourself, even having a daily notepad that you can Note stuff down as you work throughout the day to help with backtracking on orders or customer you work with to help with being able to recall what needs to be done or to check to see if something has been handled that you have been working with someone else on. 
• Downfall would have to be the distractions, that's the part you have to overcome. For myself, living a single life and also living alone I don't have very many. Just a dog that needs let outside once in a while. I could imagine working and living with a family that is home, having a loud household could make a Remote job very difficult. 
• On the plus side, The Drive to work is short and sweet, lunches are home-cooked.

From Corey: (2 year WFH Employee)

• Keep your routine, get up shower, get dressed (even if casual) as if you are going to work. Treat your home work station as if it is your desk. Make sure you have a comfortable chair and don’t trunk the tv on unless you wanna watch during lunch just make sure to turn off after