While there are many benefits to working from home including a healthier work-life balance and lack of commute, there are also drawbacks. When employees are distracted or working from home remotely, it can cause a lull in business productivity.
We’ve collected some methods for your employees to stay connected and productive despite unforeseen circumstances. Below are some ideas for maintaining and improving the productivity of your workers.
Increase Communication
Communication services have skyrocketed in popularity over the last several months due to the need to interact and communicate virtually. By using platforms such as Zoom and Skype, businesses that have to work remotely have experienced increased levels of communication and collaboration despite social distancing.
With video conferencing, you avoid the miscommunications that can happen over text messages and emails. Additionally, it’s good for teams to be able to physically see each other and maintain camaraderie, even if it’s through a computer screen.
Schedule a Routine
One of the problems that comes with working from home is the gradual disregard for a routine. It is easier to be more productive when you are not trying to re-prioritize your to-do list for the day after every hour.
It may be helpful for employees to set mini-goals for themselves and easy deadlines so that they can maintain a sense of urgency in their work. With a pending deadline, employees can prioritize so that they do not default to working on non-essential tasks, making them more efficient and productive.
Create starting and closing times for the day. Just like a typical working day, working from home should have a time when operations start and close for the day. These times can be adjusted to create flexibility so that workers with kids or other responsibilities at home would be able to work and still do what they need to do.
Advise employees to work in a separate, quiet room that’s specifically for working. You should let your employees know that working in their own space, free from distraction, would help them be more productive and finish their given tasks on time.
Keep Information Centralized
Having a central place for communication and sharing of ideas will help keep important information centralized. Doing this will, in turn, make information more accessible and facilitate efficiency in your work processes.
You can do this by using portals and central databases such as Google Drive to hold all the required information in one place. You can also use Customer Relationship Management systems (CRMs) and other business management apps to break down the barriers between various departments, allow information to be accessible, and track project progress.
Create and Update Your Budget
It is vital to ensure that the employees responsible for business finances have access to both the funds and the budget. With all that is going on, there might be a need to review and edit your budget.
If you already have a budget, use this time to plan for potential future repercussions from the pandemic. You should also create a plan for how you are going to incrementally return to your standard process or adapt to a new routine.
Hire a Managed Service Provider
Although your IT department employees may be working, there are many tasks that they may be unable to do. For this reason, hiring a managed service provider (MSP) would be a great investment in business productivity.
Hiring an IT service company for managed IT services would give you access to IT professionals who can help you resolve your technology difficulties and boost productivity. Other ways that using an MSP can boost productivity include:
- Ensuring data backup and disaster recovery: This feature would save the business time and costs in the unfortunate event of data loss.
- Improving the quality and reliability of computer systems and networks: It’s simple: when systems work well, productivity increases.
- Increased security: With managed IT services, you are not only protected from threats of malware or data loss; you are also safeguarded from potential risks which could cause problems in the business and lead to a decrease in productivity.
Helping your business transition from old to new processes and finding a new groove as quickly as possible will help promote the effectiveness, security, and collaboration efforts of your systems.