- Many employees are looking for better solutions as they strive to serve their employers from home, so they should follow these steps.
Once thought to be impossible for various reasons, many companies are running now via work-from-home operations. Employees have been allowed to do their jobs in the safety of their house to avoid the pandemic. It has been predominantly successful, but there is still a lot that can be better. This is where you come in as management. While some of the pressure has been relieved, you can still assist your workers in several ways.
Improve Your Infrastructure
While you may have got things done with a basic internet setup, it is time that you did some upgrading of your tech infrastructure. There are many things that your people can do that will be much better if you have the right technology. For example, having your work server on the cloud is much better than depending on Google services like Docs and Gmail. At least, if those go down, you can be assured of productivity continuing.
It can also provide you with more opportunities. If your company could not get calls before since everyone was outside the office, a VoIP system like Xorcom could make it happen so that your people can receive calls in their homes. Some call centers have used this to make it possible to keep their operations running.
Help Them Get Tools
A lot of these tech upgrades are not as effective if your employee is still using an old computer or has a bad connection. It would be best if you were taking steps to improve these for your employees. There are several ways you can help. Some companies have a specific fund that they release to their employees for upgrades. There is a lot that a few hundred dollars can do to upgrade your employee’s home setup. They can buy a new computer, sign up with a better ISP, or even upgrade their current system.
Some may want more control over what their employees get. For companies who have laptops in supply, they often issue these to their employees so that they can have a good workstation. Other companies go a bit beyond that. One company sent out comfortable ergonomic work chairs so that their people would be able to work with no back problems.
Have an Official Policy
Many companies entered work-from-home arrangements mainly for emergency purposes. A lot of employees went along with it as they got paid. However, it would be best if you had a solid policy as you move forward. This ensures that you have clear rules and responsibilities that your people have to follow if they want to work-from-home. Even if things go back to normal, the ability to allow for work-from-home operations can ensure that your company stays productive no matter what. These rules ensure that future employees can get on board quickly and that you have a good way of keeping them under control. Good policies include the working hours they have to follow, the quotas they have to meet, and the criteria they have to meet if they want to work-from-home.
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Provide Emotional Support
Besides a good policy that clears up all the legal areas of work-from-home operation, there is still the matter of how your employees feel. Morale is pretty important when it comes to ensuring your workers are productive. You need to ensure that they feel positive about their work-from-home experience. Usually, people would have the camaraderie of their coworkers to keep them going. But working from home isolates them. You should take steps to increase interaction and keep in touch with your people. This helps keep them on track and prevents depression. For example, do fun activities with your people so that they can have a break. This helps relieve tensions and make them feel better. You can also encourage collaboration and engagement so that people can share work projects.
Be Smart About Work Assignments
One important thing to note is that you have to be smarter about your work assignments. Make the job hyper-focused. Burdening them with unimportant work wastes the opportunity with work-from-home. If the task is repetitive and tedious, it would be better to automate it instead. Have your people focus on the important things so that they feel their work has sufficient weight and worth the effort.
Improving the work-from-home experience of your workers can be a big boost. While the pandemic is looking to be near its end, there still might be months before things return to normal. That is thousands of hours of work and ensuring that your people can give their best from their home is a massive help to their productivity.
