It’s a crazy, scary time. COVID-19 (aka “Coronavirus”) is wreaking havoc on human health, revealing deep fractures in our various medical system infrastructures (despite the heroic efforts of those on the frontline), tanking economic markets, halting travel, upending education, disrupting how we work, and causing a level of mass fear, hysteria, and anxiety that many people have never experienced. Pressure is everywhere.
But, as I’ve learned throughout my life, in any deep pain or challenge, there is a huge opportunity to listen, learn, fix, heal, and adapt for a healthier future. Accordingly, I believe each of us has a responsibility to urgently look for ways we can help minimize the collateral damage during this crisis while also keeping an eye out for what systemic change needs to happen to prevent similar crises in the future.
Personally, I know I can help in the immediate future by supporting the hurried implementation of remote and work from home situations. How can I do this? Well, I’ve been in the remote and flexible jobs space for over 13 years now as the founder of FlexJobs. My journey started because I saw the deep and true value of remote work—and what remote work can mean for individuals, families, organizations, economies, and our environment—my amazing team and I have been diligently creating resources, trust, and success around working from home that can be extremely useful in a time like now.
For example, we have contributed to several remote working LinkedIn Learning courses that you and your team members can check out:
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Founded in 2007, FlexJobs is the most experienced remote & hybrid hiring platform.
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So, whether you’re a leader at an organization in the midst of implementing remote work due to coronavirus and looking for resources, or if you’re an employee who’s been suddenly sent home to work and want more guidance, you’re not alone and we’re here for you.
Work-from-Home Productivity Tips
First, find as focused, quiet, and productive of a place to work at home as you can. Remove clutter or items that could distract you from being productive. It’s ideal if it can mimic your in-office arrangement in positive ways. For example, if you use dual monitors at the office and you have a favorite headset, ask your manager if you can bring them to your home office for the time being or get a stipend to purchase them so you can maintain the highest level of productivity as possible.
Also, if it’s important to you, psychologically, to dress professionally, by all means do. Although we encourage you to take the opportunity to be more casual/comfortable and see how that feels.
Typically, staying focused while working from home is a challenge for people who feel less self-disciplined by nature, but during this kind of emergency work-from-home situation thrust onto workers, focus may be a challenge for most remote workers. That’s because many of us have children whose school’s have been cancelled, partners, roommates, pets, or others not used to having us work from home. So, in addition to setting up a work space, also discuss ideas for boundaries for how everyone in the house can get along during this unique time.
While this might be temporary, take time to make it comfortable and set yourself up for success!
Successful Remote Communication Strategies
While good communication skills are beneficial in any work environment, when working from home it’s even more so. That’s because you don’t have the ability to passively pick up on visual cues or body language such as seeing your coworker looking really frustrated, tired, stressed, etc. So first, you have to try to really listen well. It could be someone’s tone of voice on a call, or the enthusiasm or lack thereof in an email, or in some cases your sense of a situation.
From there, proactive communication is paramount–be an active participant in outreach, ask questions, and make sure there is a clear understanding of goals and expectations. Identify which communications platforms you currently have (messaging, emails, phone, instant messaging, screen-sharing, video meeting, etc.), and then agree upon which will work best for what tasks.
This is a good time to pay attention to gaps you may have in your “work from home workplace” as they compare to the in-office environment, such as social watercooler chat. Maybe you start doing virtual coffee chats or start a new Slack channel around Pet Co-Workers or other topics of interest.
If you’re interested in going deeper, our team at FlexJobs helped with a Linkedin Learning course on How to Work Remotely that we encourage you and your teams to check out.
Keep an Open Mind—Remote Work Will Help Now and in the Future
The bottom line is that no work environment—in an office headquarters or working from home—is all good or all bad every day, so ultimately, it’s important to keep an open mind.
For example, there are long lists of common complaints about working in office—starting with the commute stress, time, and cost to get there, but then interruptions, general noise, office politics, and too many annoying or gross things that colleagues sometimes do. Maybe there will be parts of those you won’t mind giving up for a bit. For the things you really anticipate missing, it’s a great exercise to conscientiously think of how you could translate those into a remote/distributed environment.
The bottom line is that this pandemic is highlighting the fact that remote and flexible work is a NEED for organizations, not just a worker-driven luxury as it’s so often been dismissed in the past. Remote work policies are incredibly important during emergency situations such as this, and it can be the difference between keeping our team members safe and our organizations in business.
Finally, while suddenly being thrust into working from home might feel uncomfortable temporarily, remind yourself that in this case remote work is helping the greater good.
Want to receive more tips to help you and your team get through the coronavirus? Check out our emergency preparedness page.
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