WORK FROM HOME EFFECTIVELY DURING QUARANTINE PERIOD
You wake up late in the morning and realise you need to hurry for the office. Then you remember you have been in home quarantine for last couple of weeks. During current Covid-19 situation, you have to stay home for your own safety and for the best protection of your beloved family. Many of us are continuing this work-from-home activity for last 1 month or more. While your conventional physical office may be closed and you don't need to hurry to catch your office in the morning, there are a few things to do to keep the flow of work smooth and efficient.
1 - Believe that you are in the office: You need to maintain a discipline of sleeping on time and waking up early. Carry on with your post-wake-up activities and change to formal or smart casual attire, as if you are going to your office. Set a fixed place or corner at your home for your everyday office work. It is good if you can make a dedicated work place with your office gear: laptop, desktop, stationaries, board-markers, chart paper etc. You need to have the mindset that you are in the office and ready to perform better every day.
2 - Ensure family support: You need to make your family aware regarding your dedicated workstation and request them for full support during the office hours by not making any distractions in that specific space. Also, other than very urgent need, it will be good if you are not asked for any involvement in daily matters during office hour.
3 - Have a fixed office hour: It can be from 9 AM to 6 PM or any other time bracket, whichever suits your office timing and yourself. Have a finishing line and you must complete your daily work by that cut-off time.
4 - Set clear goal and objective for you and your team: Since lockdown and general holiday period is getting extended regularly, it is best to set weekly goals and break it down to daily deliverables. For your team, it's very important to set clear expectation during this period, as you are not getting them in office; give prompt feedback and direction. Expectation has many different meanings to many different person, if it is not articulated clearly.
5 - Ensure tools and resources: It can be technical tools like smooth internet connection, workstation, installation of required apps and software in your devices or it can be some materialistic resources for your teams like safety kits and equipment, or logistics and transportation support, or quick cash-monetary resource to keep running the business.
6 - Effective reporting: Prepare reports of your progress and seek such similar reports from your team members at day end or at the end of the week. Effective reporting will help you understand how much you have progressed against your set targets and what is your gap or percentage of over achievement.
7 - Reset action plan: Analyze the outcome to see if there is any gap between the results and expectations. Reset your action plan, work pace or resource planning to cover up the gaps in coming days.
8 - Use tech tools: WhatsApp is a very popular tool in our country for effective corporate communication through active groups. Also Teams and Zoom have recently become very popular for group calling, video conferencing etc. During this home period time, utilize all these tools to communicate effectively with your supervisor, peers and team members.
9 - Spread motivation: Spread your positive spirit among others as well. Be it your supervisor, or peers, team members & family members. Avoid all sorts of negative news and rumors. This is not going to help you in anyway right at this moment. Call team mates frequently to, ask about their well-being and request them to take care of themselves the most during this period.
10 - Prepare yourself for post-COVID world: You have lot more time now. No travel time, hectic traffic, no social engagement. Utilize all this time in trying out new things. In post-COVID period, there will be a big shift in our corporate and enterprise world. The more competent you are, the more chances that you will do better in post-COVID-19 era. Remember, this is the time, when many of you can accelerate your growth by learning new things, developing new skills and raising your own standard.
Writer is Chief Marketing Officer of Link3 Technologies Ltd