6 Ways to Work from Home More Productively

As a business owner, it’s understandable you’re concerned about the impact working from home will have on your workforce. How do you maintain operational efficiency? What about home-office cybersecurity? Compass Computing Group has over 25 years of experience deploying remote and managed IT solutions right here in Portland.

Here are 6 easy steps you can take right now to make sure your staff members are productive, motivated and able to achieve their objectives even while working from home. Following this guide will allow you to work remotely with ease:

1.     Divide and Conquer

Unlike a conventional office environment, interruptions are a key aspect of the work-from-home experience. One way to address this is to take the “divide and conquer” approach.

Prioritize responsibilities that matter. Identify and focus on high-priority functions to ensure the most important responsibilities are handled without delay. Medium and low priority tasks – especially those that aren’t time-bound – can be handled later.

2.     Cultivate a Culture of Support

No one likes sudden changes to their work situation. Articulate your work-from-home plan early and clearly to minimize friction. Make sure to support your team every step of the way, whether that’s offering flexible deadlines, setting up work-from-home tools or getting their opinion on ways to make the transition easier.

3.     Encourage Planning and Accountability

Encourage remote employees to set realistic targets for day-to-day work within the constraints of their new work environment. Then monitor progress and ensure these objectives are met.

It’s important to focus your attention on efficiency to avoid redundant solutions that reinvent the wheel. Your objective here is to build efficient remote strategies to match or exceed your pre-COVID capabilities.

4.     Communicate Frequently and Effectively

Regular communication with your remote team, whether on a call or over email, is vital to setting expectations, following up and maintaining team morale. Even something as small as sending an appreciative email can help.

Apart from top-down communication, encourage 360 and peer-to-peer communication. Your staff needs to get used to the idea of leveraging remote working tools to talk to each other, not just for communicating with the boss. Aim to build the kind of horizontal and vertical lines of communication that support your on-site work remotely.

5.     Prioritize Work-Life Balance

When working at home, your team’s personal life away from the office comes into sharp focus. How do you achieve work-life balance?

Team members will be juggling work with domestic challenges. It’s a good idea to split the day into sections with multiple breaks in between. This will help your remote workforce effectively balance work and at-home life. 

Avoid the impulse to always be on call

When working from home, it’s important to set boundaries. Setting the phone to silent after work hours is one way to achieve this. Remind your team to disconnect after the workday. That way, they can focus on the things that matter most at home after their work is done.

6.     Prevent Zoom Fatigue

Zoom and other videoconferencing providers have been among the winners in the post-COVID environment. While businesses are quickly embracing teleconferencing as an alternative to face-to-face communication, it’s important not to use teleconferencing excessively.

Not every order, chat or presentation demands a live video call. Before you make a Zoom call, ask yourself: Is this worth a video call or would an email do the trick? Make sure to use email, phone and other options whenever possible.

MSP Expertise: The Secret to a Successful Remote Working Strategy

When planning a remote working strategy, the principles are straightforward: focus on key roles, delegate responsibility and balance work and life. Implementation, however, can be tricky. In today’s volatile online environment, you can’t risk getting remote work wrong. Partner with an experienced managed IT provider to get your remote work environment set up right. Call us at 503-691-5706 or reach out today. Compass Computing Group takes remote IT off your plate so you can focus on growing your business.