How time flies ! I have been working from home for more than 7 months now since March this year. I thought it’d be just a few weeks before I returned to the office but I’m still logging on from home and today is 16th October. A couple of weeks after I started working from home, I published an article to share my hints and tips on LinkedIn. More than 7 months down the road, the content is still valid:
My article on LinkedIn in March 2020:
The past few weeks I have been working at home following the spread of COVID-19. I have embraced the use of technology in particular Video-conferencing, Skype and Conference Calling. Thought I would share my thoughts!
The COVID-19 pandemic global outbreak started in China in January, then Asia in February and now Europe and US. After losing more than 3,200 lives in China, China’s death rate has gone down a lot in the past week. On the other hand, Italy has already lost more than 2,000 lives since its outbreak only from the beginning of March followed by Iran over 850 and Spain nearly 350. Although the death tolls in the UK still remains low with 55 so far compared with the above-mentioned countries, the confirmed case in the UK is now nearly 1,550 at the time of this article written on Monday evening 16th March 2020. If the UK runs the same trend as Italy or Spain, it is projected UK would also lose more than a thousand of lives in the next couple of weeks unless drastic measures are in place to stop the spread of the COVID-19 virus. Earlier this evening, Prime Minister Boris Johnson kicked start a daily news conference with the media where he proposed some drastic measures include the ban of events with large crowd of people such as sports events, concerts, cinemas, theatres due to the highly contagious rate of the virus via airborne. Prime Minister Johnson also encouraged employees to work from home if it is possible to do so.
There are pros and cons by working from home. The pros are the time and money saved in commuting to the office. The cons are the lack of face-to-face discussions with colleagues and customers. But let’s not dwell on the negative sides here. With the current outbreak of COVID-19, I really appreciate the opportunity offered by my employer to work from home to mitigate the risk of its employees exposing to the virus. I hope to reap this opportunity to make working from home as enjoyable and productive as like I work at the office. To achieve this, I have to set some personal strategies and to impose some disciplines. Here are my top 10 tips:
1. Set the alarm
I mimic my daily schedule at home exactly like I do at the office. So, first of all, I still set my alarm clock to wake up exactly the same time I get up to travel to the office. This strategy is to frame me into a mind-set of the 9-to-5 structure and routine. If I don’t set my working hours and start late in the morning, I will end up pulling long nights every day in order to get things done. This is not good for well-being and I will end up burning myself out early on in the week.
2. Keep a routine and schedule
While working from home, keep the same routine and schedule as working at the office. Stick to the same time to have breakfast, morning tea/coffee, check emails, check calendars. Keep an updated calendar. Set regular check-in calls with colleagues and customers. If you establish and keep a routine, you will get more done, feel accomplished and get the most from the WFH option. Stick to the working hours and try not to be tempted to make a quick run to B&Q in the middle of your “working day”. Like I said above, after you come back, you will end up pulling long night in order to catch up with the work.
3. Find a quiet room / quiet space at home
Working in front of the telly is an absolute no-no. I know it is really hard to treat my own home like an office. But it needs to be treated this way. When I work at the office, I want to work in a peace and quiet environment so that I can concentrate in my work. I never watch television when I am working at the office so why should I do it at home not to mention being interrupted by children, pets, family members while working from home. Therefore, it is very important to find a quiet room or quiet space at home to work. If family members need to talk, keep the conversation to a minimum and explain to them you are working from home and need to get the work done. It is very important to set boundary at home. Your family members need to understand you are working at home and your kids will know there is no “play-time” during mum / dad’s “working time”.
4. Make use of the technology
While nothing can replace face-to-face in-person meetings, the use of video-conferencing, conference calls and Skype can be good substitutes and they are extremely helpful particularly when working from home. Make sure you always turn on the email, calendar and Skype and make sure colleagues know where to finds your mobile phone number on the company intranet directory.
5. Health and Safety and well-being
When working at the office, we have the appropriate furniture such as desks and chairs to ensure our health and safety. For example, chairs much have 5 legs with arm rest; height of the flat screen must be adjustable. When we work at home, we sometimes work on the kitchen top while standing hence we tend to drop our head too low towards the laptop screen. At work, we have adequate lighting to protect our eyes from straining. While at home, we could lie in bed working on our laptop without the light on. At the office, we enjoy the optimal room temperature at all time thanks to the central climate control system. At most households, the central heating is adjusted manually. It is quiet easy to get too cold without even knowing. To ensure our health and safety and well-being it is our responsibility to set up a working environment at home with appropriate furniture, adequate lighting and room temperature ideally set between 20oC and 22oC.
6. Work to collaborate / be part of the team
Working from home could sometimes be quite isolated and lonely. Collaboration is crucial because no one single can absolutely know everything. Therefore, it is necessary to work closely with colleagues and customers and being on a team requires team work. A successful WFH experience includes finding ways to collaborate and interact with people whether it is by emails, Skype or phone calls. Don’t skip out conference call meetings thinking the meeting chair might not notice. Even though you don’t see each other during the conference calls, your voice is your presence. It is very important to keep your line manager (LM) up-to-date about your work progress, let your LM know how you are getting on and discuss any issues or problems. With this, your LM will get less worried about whether the WFH arrangement is working or not. Communication is the key in the WFH environment. Do stay in touch with your manager, colleagues and customers.
All in all, I think with some strategies and discipline in place, WFH can allow us to be as productive, if not more, as we do at the office. I also think it can generate good morale taking into the consideration the flexibility gained from it. This could help improve retention rate and attract new talents to join an organisation.
7. Security is the King
It is very important to be vigilant to protect and shield the information displayed on the screen away from neighbours (looking through your window) and family members (walking pass your work desk). The best way to ensure the security of the content displayed on your screen is to use the privacy shield to cover your screen. If the privacy shield is not available, draw the curtains of the windows or patio door. Don’t discuss your work with people in your household whether they are family members, neighbours or friends. They don’t need to know. Always lock your computer and your mobile phone whenever you leave your desk. At the end of the “working day” working from home, please shut down the computer and lock away the security token. Always keep the mobile with you or lock the mobile phone when away from it.
8. GDPR @home
In addition to the above, there may be other requirements under the GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) and other security or privacy regulations or requirements which are applicable while working from home same as working at the offices. For example, if you have a home security cameras and the cameras film what is on display on your computer screen. This footage gets sent to the “Cloud” storage owned and managed by the security company you have subscribed to. . Depending on the quality of your security cameras at home, if they are of the high quality and high resolution type, the security company could effectively capture your organisation’s internal information. I would strongly suggest positioning your screen away from your home CCTV or disabling the CCTV while you are working from home.
In regard to social media, I know many people are very tempted to post photos on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter to share their experience in working from home. Please refrain from posting photos with the computer display screen showing work related information.
9. Talking on the Conference Calls
Many organisations have very secured working environment at all its sites. Visitors are not allowed to enter the employees’ working area. Employees have to go through security clearance prior to joining an organisation. This has given the employees a security assurance to work at the office and most of the time can conduct conference call at an open planned office. However, when we work from home, we have lost all these security assurances. We don’t know the background of our neighbours or housemates/flatmates. I am not saying we should not trust our neighbours or the people sharing the accommodation. To play safe, when talking on the conference calls, keep the noise down. Better still, close the door and close the windows of the room and make sure there is no eavesdrop.
10. Stay strong and stay safe
Finally, I really don’t know where we are heading to in terms of the fight against the COVID-19. We must stay strong and positive as prolonged isolation away from colleagues and friends could have negative impact on mental health. Keep calm and enjoy working from home !