Work from Home – Best Practices

Working from home may be the need of the hour as we are living in the times of a pandemic but most people especially working moms have always romanticized the idea. I remember I wanted to resign in the year 2008 after the birth of my son as I had a new-born, a 4.5-year-old daughter and an extremely busy husband who didn’t have time to support his over-worked wifey to take care of.

In that scenario, my company gave me the opportunity to work from home.

Most of the people who heard about it went gaga over the fact and thought that this is the best thing that could happen to me. I could get up a bit late, sit down anywhere in the comfort of my home from couch to study-table, without any compulsion of dressing up for the office, can look after kids, instruct maids to manage the house-hold work and on top of it will save precious travel hours to and from office. What a dream job?

 But practically, most of the people did not understand the concept, my colleagues thought since my office is home and home is office, so I am practically available round-the-clock. My family members thought since I am working from home so I can be loaded with additional tasks of paying bills and guiding the house-helps, as and when required. My neighbours thought since I was home so they can leave their keys as well as their kids as per their convenience and my hubby thought since he came back home after a long day and I was lazing around since morning, so I have this moral duty to serve him a hot meal.

 I always thought that despite getting such convenience, why am I not able to manage all the aspects well? Looks like I was not organized. But I was the most organized person in my team with best time management skills, just a few months back. So, what now? After the struggle of a month or so, I realized the issue and decided to follow the best practices of working from home, which I learnt with hit and trial back then, since there were no role models to follow:

 1.     Dedicated workspace – Create an office-like environment with a comfortable working desk and chair. Decorate your workspace, just like you do it in your office cubicle with family pics, or small idols of your favourite deities, your awards, or other trinkets. This will help create the right feel and would keep you more involved and focused.

2.     Regular office hours – It is important to discuss and decide with your management the office timings which could be 9 am to 6 pm, or as your work demands, but try to keep it fixed. You can take little flexibility here and there but don’t make it a practice. This practice will help both your colleagues and family members to understand what your working hours are and ensure that they don’t encroach into each other’s time, unless and until it’s an emergency.

3.     Importance of facetime – Though you may be working remotely but never forget the importance of facetime. Try to keep your camera switched on during online meetings. This way you can read the faces of the people you are interacting with and can be more effective in the meetings. It will also allow you to keep the bond of physical presence alive. If possible, visit the office or attend meetings to stay connected with the ground realities.

4.     Improve documentation and communication – Now since you are not visible much in the office space, so it is more important than ever before that you communicate more about the work you are doing. Try to document each aspect of your work and ensure that the related communication is crisp and clear. Your presence should be felt by the people around at all possible times.

5.     Dress well and stay motivated – Though the concept of getting up late and working in pajamas sounds tempting but don’t fall for this trap. It’s important to dress in comfortable working clothes to increase your confidence level, keep away the laziness and to keep you motivated to perform better.

6.     Avoid Distractions – Since there’s no one around from office to keep a watch so it becomes more important that you be your own watchdog. There will always be distractions around like household chores, cranky kids and biggest of all social media. Avoid all these distractions just the way you do during your office hours. Stay focused and improve your productivity.

7.     Schedule regular breaks – Just like you take lunch and coffee breaks at the office, schedule your breaks in a similar fashion, as far as possible. Inform your manager over Skype or Slack for how long you will be away from your desk. These small breaks will help you rejuvenate and get back to work with more vigor and informing the manager about the breaks will keep his/her confidence on you alive.

Working from home is not the best position to be in, as it alienates you from the office and you can easily land up in the situation where you are first out of sight and then out of mind. But sometimes you have no choice and it is required for sustainability. In those cases, follow these practices and ensure that this temporary situation ends as soon as possible, on a positive note.

All the Best!!