In connection with the situation in the world, the topic of quarantine and working from home is very relevant now. And it's not easy for people who have always worked in an office to organize themselves.
Remote work has its advantages and disadvantages. The advantages include:
1. Time saving. You do not need to spend your time on the road, especially if you live in a large city, in order to get to the office on average it will take at least an hour. And by saving time on the road, you will save it for your family.
2. Loyalty. Most often, employees of a distributed team are more loyal. They value the freedom and trust of their Manager, reciprocate and feel more responsible. They work in comfortable conditions, in an environment that they created themselves, to their own taste. They can plan their own time. In an atmosphere of comfort, trust and freedom, employees get more pleasure from their work.
But remote work also has a number of disadvantages:
1. Team spirit. In remote work, the team is isolated from each other and this leads to a loss of team spirit and can often lead to misunderstandings.
2. Communication. Usually all communication takes place in text form, but still, when you are together in the office, you communicate, share news, etc. Remote work does not allow live communication, and correspondence in the chat does not convey emotions. Therefore, it is very important to hold a General meeting of the entire team at least once a day.
3. Working day and organization of work. As for me, the most difficult thing in remote work is to organize your time and day. When you are at home, especially for girls, there is always something that distracts you – somewhere to wipe the dust, somewhere to clean, etc. The life rhythm of each employee is different and this affects the entire productivity of the project.
But despite the disadvantages, there are critical situations that make you work remotely, and there is no escaping this. So you need to be able to organize yourself.
First, it is important to prepare your workplace. Choose a suitable table, a comfortable chair, it is very important to have the right lighting. Check all the technical aspects, the performance of your computer, network settings, etc. If You do not have a working machine at home or have problems with the headset for meetings, let your Manager know – in such situations as now, the Manager must provide you with everything you need to work.
You can also set clear boundaries and expectations with your team. Determine how many General meetings you need, which chats to communicate in-Slack, Skype, or Google Hangouts. You can also set the response time, for example, mail up to 22 hours, chat - up to 23 hours.
A few tips for the Manager:
1. It is very important for the project Manager to track the productivity of their employees. Hubstaff or internal Upwork tracker is good for this if you have projects through it.
2. Conduct a team review. One of the problems with a remote team is that employees can feel lonely and isolated. Most people don't have this problem and love the freedom that working from home gives, but it's important to ask again from time to time and make sure everything is OK.
3. Make sure that the team is ready to work from home, that everyone has everything they need to work. If you don't follow this example, your business will suffer first.
But the most important thing in this situation is not to panic, wash your hands with soap and be healthy!
HR-Department