Remote working as a way of Life

Remote work is a working method that allows professionals to work outside of a traditional office environment. It is based on the concept that work does not need to be done from a specific place to be executed successfully.

While the current situation of Social distancing demands this, a lot of Global /Tech/Forward looking companies have migrated to remote working for some time . Infact IBM started work from home as early as 1979 and at a point in time in 2009 , 40 % of their work force worked from home .

Some evident advantages of remote working

1.       It raises employee productivity.

2.          It reduces attrition rates.

3.          It lowers facility costs

4.          It results in fewer sick days

5.          It reduces payroll costs

6.          Brings in freedom and flexibility and take care of family needs

7. The ability to hire amazing people from a broader pool of talent.

8. Better for the environment.

Some things to keep in mind while working remote

Remote Self-management

For better or for worse, most of us are used to having a manager decide what our working hours are, where we’re going to sit, what equipment we’re going to use, and whom we’re going to collaborate with. That’s a luxury that comes with the convenience of working together in a shared space, where management can supervise and coordinate our efforts. It may not always feel luxurious, but you may well find yourself missing the support of an attentive manager when you start working from home and realize you have to make these decisions for yourself.

Set a Schedule and Stick to It

For anyone starting out a remote role is to establish the hours you’re going to work, and stick to those hours.

It’s not as easy as it sounds. When you’re working from home, you won’t have all of the little cues that come with office life to tell you when to pause for lunch, when to take a break, and when to stop working for the day.

Some people find that it’s easier to compartmentalize remote work by using a co-working space, simulating the effect of going out to work and then coming back at the end of the day. If you’re working from home, your professional and personal lives can start to blend. You’re going to find yourself having people at home with distractions , Door bells , Answering the telephone, and attending to all the other chores that crop up in your living space and that’s just fine! as long as it doesn’t start to interfere with your productivity on the job. Decide up front on your morning and afternoon work hours and respect them.

Let Everyone Know When and Where You’ll Be Working

Building on the theme of scheduling, a remote worker needs to let anyone who works with them know how to get in touch, and may need to encourage that kind of contact regularly. Remote workers can feel isolated or even excluded — left out of important decisions because people at the office simply forgot about them. It’s up to the person who’s working off site to make their existence known throughout the work day, and to advocate for visibility.

This can be easier said than done. One of the advantages of remote work is the ability to focus without interruption for extended periods. Sometimes just the knowledge that the bubble of isolation can be broken is enough to foster distraction and make it harder to concentrate. This can make the experience draining and unproductive, and negate most of the advantages.

It’s not a bad idea to start off just using email to stay in touch with the team for typical group communications. And as a personal productivity tip, try to establish set times during the day to check that email , perhaps three or so over the course of a day. Checking your email constantly can establish a pattern of behavior that puts your attention at the mercy of anyone who wants to reach out to you for anything at any time. Email is asynchronous by nature, so use that to your advantage when you’re working from home.

Plan for Urgent Communication

But what if somebody needs to get in contact with you right away? Of course you’re working, so you should be available to your team in case of an emergency. Depending on how often this sort of thing occurs in your type of job, it’s a good idea to offer your team and your manager a backup way to get in touch with you directly for urgent communication. Texting or telephone calls can work for this, and the group messaging tools I mentioned also support notifications, but some teams like to use a third-party application that’s not tied to the company and supports group chats and notifications such as whats app or like, especially when the team has international members.

In fact, it’s not a bad idea to have everybody on the team make their emergency contact information available in one centralized location. This is one of the enhancements that show how supporting remote workers can improve the productivity of an entire team.

Establish Work Space and Equipment

You may think that the logistics of working at home will be as easy as rolling over in your bed, pulling out your regular laptop, and logging in to the office computer. That can work, but it may not be the most productive approach. It’s important to establish clear distinctions between your work and home screen time in order to help you focus when you’re working, and relax when you’re not.

The first thing to do is to secure dedicated equipment that you can use for work. If you try to use your home computer, you’re going to find yourself distracted very easily by non-work projects. You might be surprised to discover how appealing that unfinished work project sitting in the corner of your desktop can be late when you’re off the clock. Work can eat into your personal time when you should be refreshing your mind with other ideas.

It’s a good idea to establish dedicated space in your home for work. It should be an area that you can isolate from your personal life so you won’t be distracted. Even if you live in a small place , you might want to set aside a small desk or table in one corner, facing away from the rest of the room, that you’ll only use for work. It’s much harder to slip in a few extra hours of work when it involves moving to a different space and using separate equipment. And depending on where you live and your employment status, there may also be tax incentives allowing you to write off a percentage of your housing costs for space that is dedicated to work.

Remote Tools

Having the right tools, both at the office and away, can make all the difference for remote workers. Software and online services can be used to help you stay in sync with your teammates, track and share evidence of what you’ve been up to outside the office, and calm any nagging concerns about how you’re spending your time. In some cases these may be tools you are already familiar with, but you may not have taken advantage of the ways that they can be used to support remote team members.

Stay Involved in Meetings

It’s a hurdle to get teams used to working together in a physical space to include people who are not in the same room at the same time. But as much as you may try to avoid meetings, these are the times when remote workers need to make their presence known most.

Using a shared scheduling tool such as Google calendar or Outlook or dropbox can help formalize meeting times, and make sure everyone who needs to know about the meetings gets the message. And services such as Skype or Zoom can help make meetings more inclusive for geographically distributed teams.

A meeting is a great opportunity to make up for the lack of interaction that comes from working in a different location. Learn to ask questions, participate in the pre-meeting and post-meeting discussions , and generally make your engagement known. Much of the value of working on a team comes from the interpersonal dynamic and shared sense of purpose. You don’t want to lose access to that aspect of the job just because you’re not breathing the same air as everyone you work with.

Track Your Tasks and Accomplishments

Your career is your responsibility, and doing what you can to make sure your manager is aware of your struggles and successes is critical regardless of where you’re doing the work. It’s easy for the details of daily work to be ignored, and many traditional companies accept that tradeoff as long as they can see workers sitting at their desks. Remote work breaks that anti-pattern, and rightly puts the focus back on what you’ve actually accomplished with your day. As the person working off site, it’s your responsibility to make sure the work you’re doing is tracked and recognized.

Some tips on how to work from home basis my own experience  

1.      Get started early

2.      Pretend like you are going into the office

3.      Structure your day like you would in office

4.      Choose a dedicated work space

5.      Commit to doing more

6.      Work when your at your most productive

7.      Do chores as a work timer

8.      Communicate expectations with anyone who will be home with you

9.      Take clear breaks

10.  Pick a finishing time everyday

11.  Finally not the least stick to time-based delivery commitments.

Remote-work success depends heavily on whether you trust employees to do their work even if you can’t see them . Candor and two-way communication help to establish the trust you need to make your remote-work policies a success. 

Happy Remote Working :-)