Life's Surprises and WFH Productivity
Anything can happen in life. On January 1 of 2020, I had complete knowledge about what life would be like regarding the workplace. I had written my doctoral dissertation about working from home. I had no idea how appropriate my research would be. Way back in the pre-COVID days, I used to discuss the advantages of Work from Home (WFH) with business leaders to convince them to implement WFH by telling them how great it was.
In this COVID reality, however, it is no longer a matter of whether a company should implement WFH but rather how it can be applied for peak effectiveness and profitability. Companies are finding the lower costs associated with WFH beneficial. Studies show that 52% of Americans who WFH due to COVID19 would like to continue even after the pandemic clears up. Therefore companies need to invest in WFH development for their team because it is often cheaper to train and develop systems within than to fire and hire. Despite today's lightning speed internet and new technology, There are still some challenges to WFH Productivity which I faced while working from home at the start of the century: Difficulty unplugging after work, loneliness, distractions, difficulty communicating, collaborating with colleagues, siblings fighting in the living room over the latest video game, and, of course, spouses who still ask team members to run errands during work time. These challenges eventually reduce productivity and affect the company's bottom line. To help businesses face those challenges to WFH Productivity, I developed The Doctor Work from Home system, which will take a WFH workforce that is CHALLENGED by tech, burnout, distractions to AWARENESS of triggers that cause low productivity. The crew will be UNDERTAKING preemptive actions to return to top productivity by developing SYSTEMIZED solutions to improve productivity, transforming the challenges into an EFFECTIVE workplace. How can an organization Rocket WFH Productivity so that it is greater than the brick and mortar workplace? Here are five tips from my CAUSE methodology that can help companies develop more productive WFH employees and teams.The Five Tips for WFH Productivity:
- Have team members use an iterative time management system such as the Pomodoro Technique to set work up in sprints. The Pomodoro Technique is a time management tool using a timer to break work tasks down into intervals (usually 25 minutes)with breaks in between. The Pomodoro Technique is kind of like a miniaturized, individualized Agile Scrum where team members can determine what they need to get done in a 25-minute Sprint, break, rinse, and repeat.
- Set work hours and maintain them; when the workday is over, stop working. One of the pitfalls of WFH productivity that I found in my research is team members not knowing when to stop work. At first, this sounds good for an organization, but upon examination, this decreases efficiency because work-life balance suffers, and the team gradually becomes more efficient. Also, there is the situation, like my wife asking me honey-dos or Billy smacking Amy in the face during the middle of the workday. In my research, I was not the only one who had spouses or family members who did this. Keep in mind that these folks would never dream of asking their spouse to run an errand if they worked out of the office. During work time, one does work. Some systems can be set up to monitor a team member's production.
- Have ergonomically correct home offices; give your staff an allowance to set these up. If you are an employer, the last thing you want is skyrocketing workers' comp claims. Some companies will go out to your team member's home office and install an ergonomically correct workstation at a low price.
- Make video conferencing and collaboration readily available so people can collaborate and brainstorm: a virtual water cooler. Have virtual mixers to allow the staff to get to know each other, kind of like a virtual cocktail hour. Loneliness can be a pitfall to working at home. When I worked in high-tech, many ideas were born at the foosball table. Several video conferencing and collaboration tools such as S are available in the marketplace to enable a virtual watercooler or foosball table, where team members can collaborate.
- WFH Productivity is one thing, sustainability must go along with it, if you are out of compliance, you will not maintain productivity. Work with a qualified HR professional or attornies to ensure your virtual workspace complies with all the multitudes of workplace regulations. Just because employees are working from home doesn't mean you can ignore workplace regulations. Find someone who knows HR regs to guide you. You can also enroll in a service such as Legal Shield to provide guidance when needed. Legal Shield is a great service and I have saved thousands using it, Click here for more info