Stay safe and continue working...
In addition to helping our customers mobilise their workforce, at Customer Consulting Group, we "drink our own champagne" so to speak, by having several employees who have been successfully working from home most days since they joined the organisation, and as such have become somewhat experts on 'telework'.
Here are our top tips to help you work from home amidst the current situation to help do your part in preventing the spread of COVID-19 and helping our Aussie economy stay afloat.
1. Develop a good routine.
Get up early, like you normally would to head into the office. Have your breakfast, make a coffee, then head down the hall into your office. Set yourself up, fire up the laptop and get stuck in.
Creating a good morning routine for yourself that is similar to that of working in an office will help you to maintain solid working habits and motivation as you get used to seperating your home life from your work life within the same environment.
2. Manage yourself.
Set up your day like you normally would. Check your calendar, schedule your meetings and write a to-do list using an app like Microsoft Planner or Zoho Connect. By micro-managing yourself, you will learn to become accustom to completing your tasks efficiently. Making sure you use the best technology to do this will also help you to focus on how to make the most of being more mobile.
You'll also need to give yourself some ground rules to prevent the quick Facebook check up from becoming an hour of mindless scrolling because noone is there to look over your shoulder. Consider promoting productivity by rewarding yourself with a quick walk around the block or five minutes in the kitchen to grab a snack on completion of a task or after 20 minutes of solid effort.
3. Communicate frequently.
Make sure you and your team have an effective comunication platform such as Microsoft Teams, Zoho Cliq or even WhatsApp to be able to communicate regularly and as quickly as needed. You won't be able to quickly duck by a colleagues desk to ask questions from home, so you need to ensure you have an effective means of communication.
It's also a good way for those socialites among us to continue getting the positive human connection that working from home can lack in.
Remember you will need to practice extra courtesy as you can't see what others are doing and want to prevent interrupting others work.
As a side note, CCG can help you to set up your communication systems right from the beginning. We also have partnerships with telecommunications companies that can ensure you have accessible phone systems that connect to your home office.
4. Take regular breaks.
Many people forget self care when working from home and will work from dawn til dusk everyday just because they are in the comfort of their own home. Burning out is possible to do even if you are working at home, so you need to ensure you take your lunch break and you finish on time. The boundaries of work life balance are easier to cross when you're home, so set alarms or reminders to take breaks or finish working by 5pm if that's what it takes to give you a routined work day.
5. Set up your space.
One of the major upsides to working from home is your actual office/working space. Often we aren't able to express ourselves in our working space, but freedom of expression can be quite motivating to people as they tend to feel more comfortable and confident surrounded by things that make them happy. Put up some artwork, hang some cool curtains, plaster your wall in photos of your children and dog... Make your space your own, inviting and warm, full of your favourite colours and textures that make you feel energised and enthused to be in your home office.
Just remember to keep a professional space for when you've got those corporate meetings with the CEO or VIP clients...
Quick Tip: With Microsoft Teams you can even blur your background to give that extra professionalism and tech-savvy feel to your home office meetings.
6. Plan.
Finally, create a plan for each day and commit to getting it done.
If you can say it aloud, as though you are reporting into your manager, 'I will be getting XYZ completed today', then you are making a silent goal for yourself. You know you can do it, you've told yourself you will do it, now do it.
All in all, it takes a little discipline and a lot more focus to work from home. Heed the above advice and you will have a much better experience working from home during the COVID-19 situation.
If you want some help optimising your technology to work from home more effectively, send us an email to find out how we can help:
info@customerconsulting.com.au.
We are putting together some training and information sessions for anyone to attend to help you navigate the current economic climate. Take our survey to tell us what you would like to learn about most: https://survey.zohopublic.com/zs/54CN8J