One thing you don’t want to do when Working From Home.

It’s not what you think.

After COVID-19 was declared a pandemic, organisations all around the world either required or encouraged employees to work from home. Most likely, you’ve also had to work from home as well, or are responsible for help others work from home.

There is no doubt – Work From Home is here to stay and will be part of the post-COVID norm.

Challenges of Remote Working.

Working from home has its challenges and while we’ve made it work, we can always improve! Let’s consider some of the challenges of remote working:

• Striking a balance between your personal life and work.
• Loneliness and isolation.
• Collaborating with colleagues.
• Disconnecting from being “always-on” at the end of the day.
• Meeting and building rapport with customers and suppliers.
• Making sure you have the communication tools and equipment taken for granted in the office.

Create a Work Space that supports Creativity and Productivity.

Don’t underestimate distractions while working from home; they can completely alter the trajectory of your day and impact on your productivity and goals.

• Come up with a schedule and make sure everyone in your household knows when you need to be working.
• Ensure you set time aside for lunch.
• Set up a dedicated workspace that feels good and have good lighting.
• Make sure you have a good quality, solid internet connection and consider 4G backup and traffic controls so that Netflix and YouTube doesn’t impact on your Video Conference meeting!
• Invest in tools that will make your job that much easier and better, such as a VoIP phone or noise cancelling headset – there is nothing more frustrating than poor quality calls because your poor laptop is struggling with the workload load.
• If you use fax in the office, consider a or cloud-based fax system.

The one thing you don’t want to do, is to NOT carefully plan the setup of your home office and think about all the things needed to keep you productive when you must work from home due to lock-downs. (Think: what happens when you have a critical video conference meeting to attend and your internet is down?)

There are many benefits of working from home, but it’s also essential to consider the challenges and do what you can to overcome them. When you work from home, you are an extension of the business or organisation you work with – and it is good business practise to think of risks and plan for contingencies.

AINS Telecom has helped numerous businesses and workers to work from home in a reliable and cost effective way with our solid Internet connections, backup solutions and Hosted Phones and Fax systems. If you’d like advice or just to explore some ideas, feel free to contact us!