Work from Home or Simply Work Remotely ?
You prefer to Work from Home or simply Work Remotely during Special Occasions?
--------------- just think of it due to Coronavirus Epedemic spreading now
?Overview
While Manufacturing kept shutter and Office closure, do you have a Plan B?
New York created a one-mile containment zone in New Rochelle. There are more than 170 cases in the state and more than half are in the county where New Rochelle is located. It's not quite a lock down, but schools, places of worship and other places where people gather will be closed for 14 days, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said. Health experts say social distancing is critical to control the spread – but people won't stay home from work if they can't get paid. WuHan citizens also being locked down for months, not to mention some other cities which were restricted to travel everywhere. If it is a necessity to control the social distancing but you still need to keep your company in operation, remote office or work from home shall be the choice.
However, does your company have all your workers equip the mobile office devices? Think about the last minute to be phoned or WhatsApp to the office closure, is your company ready to let your workers work from home or work remotely? But if only you still need to go to the office during virus period, how are you going to avoid to be infected in the office?
Key Challenges
While during the Coronavirus, Gov’t asked the company to close the office, extend the holidays and stop school opening. These actions were taken by China Gov’t and followed by Taiwan, Korea, Italy and so on. "When you can't fly now, how do you continue to serve customers and maintain operations? You have to make good use of digital technology." said by He Hong, Microsoft Taiwan Chief Operation Officer. If there is enough lead time, people may have a chance to build the distance learning and remote working environment but when you urgently got the notice but you still have urgent business to do with your overseas offices, do you have the equipment to continue the business and work remotely? Do you know how to set up a distance meeting or coordinate a conference call with someone in Europe at 9:00am (says Netherlands) while you are at 4:00pm in Taipei?
Did you run into any communication challenges -- technical, or otherwise? Did you find yourself trying to speak up but failing to get a word in? If there were multiple people on that call, did you find that everyone was able to participate? Even more, if you are forced to go to the office during the Coronavirus or Flu, how can you work safely and efficiently in the office?
Analysis
- The biggest experiment land to practice working from home.
- How to do it if I need to work remotely or work from home?
Feb. 20, 2020. Bloomberg had published an article plus video: “Coronavirus Forces World’s Largest Work-From-Home Experiment “. Its sub-titles are very interesting, one is “Co-working is out, video chat apps are in as offices close”, the other is “Startups that rely on Chinese manufacturing have no ‘Plan B’”. Bloomberg analyst using this article to talk about the Coronavirus had pushed this: “Working from home is no longer a privilege, it’s a necessity “ in China. While factories, shops, hotels and restaurants are warning about plunging foot traffic that is transforming city centers into ghost towns, behind the closed doors of apartments and suburban homes, thousands of businesses are trying to figure out how to stay operational in a virtual world “. Its a good opportunity for China to test working from home(WFH) at scale,” and It’s going to mean a lot of WeChat meetings and phone calls.
Now many companies in all over the world and their staffs are either in 14 and another 14 days’ quarantine or City closed and business shut-down to stop moving, a lot more people trying to organize client meetings and group discussions via video chat apps, or discussing plans on productivity software platforms like "WeChat Work" or "Zoom" meetings. China has the most population to do the experiment of Work from Home or Work remotely this time.
How to do it?
Many video chat meetings only need your laptop and smart phones ready in which you can set up the online meetings. However, not all the people are familiar with it so many companies urgently prepare the user guide to his workers recently. Advanced remote work can setup video conference equipment or interactive display to increase the collaborative working and discussion and brainstorming. In BenQ, we have a regular IFP (Interactive Flat Panel) setup for video conferencing at 14th Floor.
We used BenQ IFP regularly when we have important business planning meeting or review with China and other overseas offices. Recently BenQ had announced the Corporate IFP with video conference meeting functions like DuoBoard. It is pre-loaded with useful business Apps such as Blizz by TeamViewer, a powerful cloud meeting service that unifies video conferencing, simple online meetings, group messaging, and discussion management. With a one-click-to-start interface, you can easily host a high-quality audiovisual group meeting by connecting various devices. The embedded camera and array mic enhance meeting efficiency, boosting productivity.
Last week, Gartner Group Account Executive, Sean had hold an interlock meeting with us, he brought his personal Cisco video conference device plus his laptop to hold a video conference with us in our office and invited Gartner’s US Analyst to call in and answer our inquiry. I could easily identify the Analyst was working from home at that moment. If I don't have the Cisco system, any freeware to use ? There are many online meeting software that you can choose, such as Microsoft Teams、 Skype、Google Hangouts Meet、Line、Zoom、WeChat and Cisco WebEx , etc. Let me share with you a very easy free tool which I had just used last week for a distance meetings. That is "Zoom"
If you use notebook, the prerequisite is your laptop plus a Zoom desktop client (Windows or Mac).
Click to Download Zoom desktop client and getting started from Zoom Help Center here.
Simply download a Zoom client bey free and sign in, after sign in, you can go to the Home and follow the instruction on website. (Above image from Zoom Help Center, there are also Pro version with more functions and no duration limitation you can consider. )
In my office, we also use Skype for video/audio conference. There are many ways to do it , you can pick one to use. IF you will use it regularly, you may also consider to pay for Professional version to include more function and support. In China, many people also use "WeChat" group meeting, just go download it and learn how to use it from WeChat Help Center. Last week, my company had announced some video conference system and platform for us to borrow and user guide to self-learning. Such as Zoom, Skype for business and Webex.
Work From Home Examples.
Twitter in March also encourage his employee to work from home avoid spreading Coronavirus. Twitter had announced Sunday that it was suspending all non-critical business travel and events, which was already a step farther than most of its corporate peers. The Coronavirus continued to disrupt American life that week, as companies as large as Amazon, Microsoft and Facebook began instructing employees to work remotely as much as possible.
IBM
I had submitted my retirement from IBM in 2017 because IBM had changed his original CoE (Center of Excellence), Globally Integrated Enterprise (GIE) model and asked original remote workers to work “Shoulder by Shoulder”. I don’t want to move to BJ to work by mask everyday so I'd decided to take my retirement. However, IBM at end Feb. 2020 had asked workers in Coronavirus-affected areas to work from home “wherever possible.” The guidance, issued for IBM workers in most of the countries, comes as companies scramble to protect their employees from the spreading virus by canceling conferences, making work-from-home arrangements overseas and designing contingency plans. While I was in IBM, we used AT&T conference call platform. I can be the host of the meeting and invite many people from different locations to call in at the same time. I even have a toll-free number to use like I were in the office so there is no phone fees. The remote workers have our own meeting IDs and passwords. I often called in the meeting at airport lunge or on the way in the cab during the travel. In Taiwan, we also had a good practice to work by shifts and wearing the mask during SARS. Last week they hold an online recruiting seminar in Facebook. You see, I don’t want to go to IBM BJ to wear masks for smog&dust but now I continue wearing the mask working in Taipei office all the times because of COVID-19 :P (Following is a video created by HubSpot about remote workers & put IBM as an example.)
I have introduced you one of the video conference tool (Zoom) I used, and made examples on how other companies decided to start their WFH practices but how about individuals? Most employees thrive when given the ability to work from home. Others fear they’ll miss the social connection of an office environment. Some even have no idea how to effectively and healthily work from home. Here are the Tips share by James Sorenson, a Data Scientist at LinkedIn that some of you may be interested.
Tips for Working from Home During Covid-19 (from LinkedIn James Sorenson)
1. Have a clear work and life boundary.
2. Keep strict work hours.
3. Exercise.
4. Ergonomics is important!
5. Break up your workday a little.
6. Be patient with yourself. This is maybe the most important.
LinkedIn James' tips as my observation is lacking of a focus on " healthy environment", such as the good lighting for you when you are working at home or work remotely in a Cafe. When you are working in an airport lunge, you may need to have extra light for yourself or when you are reading mail in your dining room, you may need an standing lamp to support you. No matter you work remotely or WFH, you need lighting solutions(check: The lighting solutions for work at home or work remotely). Besides of the lighting solutions, how to setup your Home Fffice to make you work more effectively ? BenQ has the Tips as below.
* Not only individuals need the tips, but the company also hope to know if they have employee working remotely, how will it go? HubSpot had a Remote Week practice.
HubSpot
After talking to other companies with growing numbers of remote employees (including Zapier CEO Wade Foster), HubSpot marketing team decided to do "Remote Week." Three goals for Remote Week as below:
- To work more effectively as a highly distributed team, and help pave the way for more effective collaboration across geographies for HubSpot as a whole.
- To cultivate empathy for full-time remote workers.
- To improve our communication with remote workers, and be at our best when working remotely.
Remote Week Rules:
1. Everyone on the team must be remote for the week. They could work from anywhere they wanted, but they could not be in a HubSpot office.
2. Everyone must have an internet connection and be able to join meetings with video.
3. No one should postpone or reschedule any meetings. They should try all different types of meetings while remote: 1:1s, team meetings, cross-functional meetings, etc.
Lessons from HubSpot Remote Week
1. For larger meetings, you need a facilitator.
2. Take advantage of spontaneous discussions.
3. Find your ideal routine, and stick to it.
4. Remain visible within your team even if you aren't actually visible.
5. Ensure that you have a working internet connection.
6. Ensure you're working in a productive workspace.
7. If you're a manager, plan inclusive team activities.
HubSpot "Remote Week" is a great example for other company to consider. Before you go into real Remote Work, maybe you could consider to do a Remote Week Test first.
Conclusion
Some management team may worry about the office exodus will lower productivity, but there’s evidence the opposite may be true. A 2015 study from Stanford University in California found that productivity among call-center employees at Chinese travel agency Ctrip went up by 13% when they worked from home due to fewer breaks and more comfortable work environments.
Some of the companies and countries (like China) had requested Return to Work because of business & economics reasons. However, we don’t know the Coronavirus or other Flu or crisis will be happened in the future. To my personal opinions, maybe it is the time for your company to do some experiments on "Remote work" or "Work from Home". Getting the practice, you can face the emergency and have the experiences to handle the urgent office closure request or flood attack and still keep your business in operation.
Also reminded on individual, before you plan to work remotely (even if it's just for a day), test out the locations you plan to call in from. If you are working from home, make sure that you have a strong WiFi connection. Test it out with a colleague ahead of time to make sure you'll be able to get your job done effectively and stay in touch with the necessary people. Otherwise, when the meeting started and you can’t call in, you will be in a panic!
Resources:
- HubSpot: 2020: Lessons from Remote Week
- Bloomberg: Feb. 20 , 2020 Bloomberg : “Coronavirus Forces World’s Largest Work-From-Home Experiment”
- LinkedIn: Feb.5, 2020 LinkedIn: “Virus Makes China Remote Work A Norm.”
- BenQ Web Site : Corporate Interactive Flat Panel
- BenQ APAC: Setup a Home Office video
- IBM Taiwan online recruiting seminar Facebook News.
- LinkedIn: Tips for Working from Home During Covid-19 (James Sorenson)
- The Washington Post March 10. Edition: Coronavirus updates