Even as lockdown restrictions have eased,  several organizations have held on to the remote workplace concept. Quite a few organizations have already asked their employees to work from home permanently. For example, TCS has already conveyed that it will be shifting 75% of its workforce permanently to work from home by 2025. IT giant Infosys is considering permanent work from home for 30-35% of its employees. Twitter has asked its employees to indefinitely work from home.

Are You Ready To Work From Home?

Amidst these uncertain times, employees need to be resilient like never before. Here are some tips to help you go through this unprecedented time and embrace work from home.

Communicate

Open communication is imperative in any workplace, more so in a remote workplace. Without any physical presence of your manager, supervisor, or colleagues, working in isolation can take a toll on your mental wellbeing and productivity. Communication is the key to stay in touch with everyone at the workplace, exchange thoughts, and brainstorm together.

Thankfully we have technologies by our side to deal with this. It is now high time we use them to our benefits. If your workplace hasn’t facilitated it yet, bring it to the attention of the concerned authorities to leverage technologies for easy and open communication. Be it chat, message, email, virtual rooms to brainstorm ideas, ensure your workplace has different communication channels in place with virtual team communication.

Set Your Own Goals

Working from home amidst the pandemic is not easy, more so when you have to take care of multiple errands in between calls and tasks. It is not unusual to drift away and lose focus on the task at hand. Needless to say, it hampers your productivity.

Don’t let all of these happen to you. Set up actionable goals. Instead of setting long term goals, break it down into short chunks of actionable goals that can be achieved easily. Work on a daily goal, weekly goal, and a monthly goal. Celebrate each time you achieve it by rewarding yourself to some treats.

Be Your Boss

If you are habituated to being micromanaged with a boss shouldering over, it is time to change it. Become your own boss. Create a to-do list for the day and stick it somewhere at your workplace. This will help you to stay focused on the task at hand.

If you are not expecting any official call, keep the phone away to avoid unnecessary browsing. Alternatively, you can use apps like Offtime and Flipd that keep your social media apps locked for a set period.

Beat Isolation

Work from home has pushed many of us into isolation. If you are a social person and love those water cooler chitchats, certainly you are missing out on catching up with peers.

Set up sometime during the lunch breaks to catch up. You can even consider having virtual lunch with your team members when you can share a laugh just like the good old days.

Ask For Help

While remote working is not a new concept, working from home forever amidst a pandemic can be overwhelming. You may have multiple hurdles to overcome to get the same job done which you used to do at a snap of a finger at the office. It is hard.

But know that there are people to help you should you ask for help. As you are coming in terms of work from home, managers and HR leaders are also trying their best to help their employees settle down well. Ask for help if you need it instead of struggling alone.

Maintain A Work-Life Balance

It often gets tricky when you work from home. Many employees are finding themselves working throughout the day, more than the stipulated work hours. Learn to take a break from work when you need to, without worrying about work. Unwind with your family before you again get back to work.

Author Anthony Hincks is quite right when he says, “When you work from home there is no such thing as a holiday”. Navigating the new normal of work from home can be challenging initially. However, following these recommended best practices will make it easier over time.