Jobhop Jobhop's blog : Working From Home And What Needs To Be Considered

People all over the world are having to adapt to a new way of living and working due to the pandemic.

Working from home due to COVID-19 might look a bit like this:

Working from home in the kitchen, in the shed, in the conservatory, or hall, or you if you're lucky in a study.
As well as working from home many people are homeschooling as well.
No more travel though unless it’s classed as essential.
Staying connected with work colleagues, friends and family on the social media platforms.
Making sure the business meetings still go ahead and many are using Zoom or Teams.
A daily dose of Joe Wicks and his squat exercises is a must, as well as the one hour of outdoor exercise a day.
When we do venture outside social distancing is on all our minds, keeping well away from other humans

Working from home had probably been discussed in business meetings, but shelved for the future, but overnight the future showed up.

Normally a transition from office to working from home would have taken planning and time but due to the coronavirus employers didn’t get that luxury. Many employers had put “transition to telecommuting” in the pipeline but it wasn’t something that was ever urgent and many have been caught off guard.

Now it’s happened, plenty of employees are working from home, they’re being productive and hopefully not too much has gone wrong.

The usual hiccups have been losing Broadband connection during a Zoom conference, the dog barking at the most inconvenient times and rescheduling work hours to also fit in homeschooling.

We have seen some classic bloopers online of employees in meetings with special effects mistakingly on, so they’re wearing crowns or mafia hats, and many employees thinking they’re not on video when they are!

It looks like employees will be working from home for quite a while yet, it may even become the new norm as employers start to realise they don’t need such big, costly offices when staff can work equally as well from home.

Going forward, for working from home #wfh to do well a few things need to be considered:

Guidelines

It’s not too late to send guidelines out to everyone. When your employees are taking conference calls with clients they should still be upholding the company brand and image so the client feels secure that only the change of scenery has changed and nothing else.

Workshops

If employees are nervous about using the technology from home then run some online workshops with them until they understand it. If employees are complete novices you might need to send them a video first demonstrating how to log onto a workshop.

Resources

There are many resources available for employees working from home but if some employees are requesting meetings on Zoom and others are using Microsoft teams it can get confusing. Draw up a list of resources to be used, get everyone familiar with them and stick to them.

Security

Security is always an issue and even more so with employees working from home and hackers are busy trying to get into internal data. Make sure that passwords are strong and they're changed regularly and get all employees are up to speed on phishing, as well as what to do if they think they’ve been compromised.

Insurance

What insurance will be required for employees working from home? Company property like laptops might not be covered by household insurance. Having the wrong insurance in place or no insurance at all could be very costly for the employer should anything happen.

Working from home will continue for many for a long time, for some, it will become their new norm. For many employers, it will make sense to ask their employees to continue working from home.

The benefits are great:

It’s safer while there is no COVID19 vaccine

Big, costly offices won’t be required

No need to commute so employers and employees all make savings

As well as money time is saved because commuting can take up big chunks of the day

We mustn’t assume all employees will be happy to continue working this way though, some like to leave the home to “go to” work. For some working from home just doesn’t suit them, they might find it hard to stay focused, they may need the energy of others to function properly.