Overcome common remote-work issues
Until the world was gripped in the clutches of a pandemic, working remotely was not a fully embraced concept of working.
In response to the impact of COVID-19, employers are adopting and finetuning their work-at-home policies. But they’re also finding that they have to find solutions to problems from working remotely.
The website Hubstaff (www.hubstaff.com) cites the following five issues, along with solutions for working at home.
1. Community and differences in culture.
When you see coworkers in a chat or weekly video calls, it’s harder to build camaraderie that makes for productive teams. Face-to-face contact is lost, and there’s no substitute for this during collaborative activities. Video conferencing has proven to be an imperfect replacement, though helpful.
• Solutions: Suggest annual meetups, having an online place to meet. Also keep an open mind. Know the difference between misunderstandings vs. maliciousness.
2. Reliability and retention. Generally, contractors don’t think of remote work as permanent employment, so trust can be an issue.
• Solutions: Change hiring process so that it looks at remote work as a skill itself. Keep all processes documented so it’s easy to hire new people. Use content checking software for deliverables. Provide health and wellness benefits.
3. Managing accountability. It’s easy to forget about and ignore remote workers. It can also be more difficult evaluating their productivity.
• Solutions: Use a timetracking and productivitymonitoring tool to help build a culture of transparency. Suggest that management clarify responsibilities so that workers have more authority over their respective areas.
4. Productivity. Oversight is often cited as a problem and obstacle by management for building a remote workforce. However, working remotely is embraced by self-starters, yet it’s not considered as reliable for unproven employees.
• Solutions: Suggest that management allow remote workers to work whatever hours they are most productive. Use tools that help focus and monitor productivity such as Google Drive and ColdTurkey to block distracting websites.
5. Communicating with remote workers.
This is a common occurrence when there are language barriers between management and remote workers. If management and workers are not comfortable speaking in the same language, problems often surface, one of which is projects take considerably longer to complete.
• Solutions: Use project management tools to facilitate communication. Invest in online communication systems like chat or video.
Another common occurrence regarding working remotely is overworking, which can lead to burnout. And one of the reasons some companies didn’t go for remote work was a fear that employees will slack off without in-person oversight. But the opposite seems to be true, according to website Zapier.com ( www.zapier.com).
A 100% remote company, Zapier management finds that several of its employees have a harder time remembering to take breaks, and knowing when to stop work at a reasonable time.
To make it easier to stop working at the end of the workday, Zapier offers these tips:
• Set appointments at end of day to get yourself out of your home office. This is a good time to go to the gym, jog or go shopping.
• Set reminders to take breaks. For example, set times for brief walks, or coffee breaks, which are healthy ways to break your routines and refocus your energy.
• Set physical boundaries between you and your workspace. If you have a dedicated work space, such as a den converted to an office, leave it and shut the door. This is your signal that you’ve finished work for the day. If you don’t have a dedicated workspace, turn off your computer at the end of the day and put it out of sight. This is another daily routine indicating that your work is finished.
• Turn off notifications on your phone and computer so that you’re not tempted to return to your office after work hours.