Remote Working

Working from home, or remotely, can be a liberating and productive experience and, done well, can enhance your work life. No need to squeeze onto an overcrowded train, or spend time commuting, allowing you to manage your own daily routine. However, working remotely can present other challenges.

Structure your working day

There will always be the temptation to relax standards whilst working remotely. To be the most productive, work needs to feel like work. Structure and routine can really help to ensure your day is used efficiently.

Your work space

Your environment will have an impact on your ability to work properly, creating a work space separate to the rest of the house, such as a converted shed, or simply closing the door on a spare room if available. If none of these are available, in a bedroom, or lounge space, a desk set up for work will help to get you into the working mindset. 

From a physical perspective, you are likely to be sitting down for a number of hours and having a proper chair and desk with a larger screen at an appropriate height will help to maintain your physical health. Many companies will be keen to ensure their employees home work space is ergonomically suited to work use, so there may be help with the purchase of chairs and desks available.

Work/Home life separation.

One of the real benefits of working away from the home in a dedicated office is that, largely speaking, when you leave the office the work day is over. With ‘always on’ technology there is a danger of the lines between work and home becoming blurred, but, for your mental health and wellbeing, having separation between the two environments is important. Whilst working from home getting dressed for work, and being presentable for team and customer video calls, and then debunking to lounge wear at the end of the day can provide real separation which helps to distinguish between work and down time.

Take a break

Working at home full time can start to feel a little dull; fitting exercise and daylight into your day will definitely help your mind and body, similarly making time for yourself and being strict about taking breaks will enable you to cope with remote working long term.

Set goals

Not strictly limited to remote working but setting goals and organising priority tasks will really help to give a sense of having achieved something purposeful with your day. Working from home or remotely can be a lonely place and making small wins can help to maintain high spirits.

Stay in touch with your colleagues regularly

One of the biggest losses that can come from working remotely is the feeling of togetherness and social interaction with your colleagues. Fortunately, with the incredible collaboration software tools available to aid working together, such as Microsoft Teams, Zoom and Slack, it is easily possible to stay in touch face to face. It can feel alien to set an online video conference call where a phone call will do but seeing your colleague’s face can lift your day. These tools are now going way beyond just video conferencing, with plugged in collaboration functionality that enable you to share projects and tasks. Regular face to face contact can negate any sense of isolation.

Living with others

If you aren’t used to working from home and this is new to you, learning to work under the same roof with others that you cohabit can present a challenge. You may be invading someone else’s normal domain and being sympathetic to that can stop unnecessary flair ups. Open communication about how you’d all like things to run could save you from unexpected tension.

Make it fun

Working from home with limited contact can get depressing. Some businesses are pretty creative around video conference social interaction, with tea breaks over Teams, Friday afternoon happy hour drinks and company quizzes all being used to stave off any boredom and giving teams a bit of social interaction.

The Ashdown Group specialises in IT recruitment, HR recruitment, Marketing recruitment and Accountancy recruitment. We support businesses with permanent, contractor and executive recruitment. Contact us to register a vacancy.