For many businesses around the world, remote work is the new reality. How prepared is your business for this shift? Is your team equipped to work remotely? Now is the time to get serious about working remotely because it’s going to reshape the future of most businesses.
Defining remote work
If you’ve always wanted to work remotely, your wish has been granted. Today, remote work is transforming the landscape of modern businesses. It’s quickly becoming a new standard by which teams collaborate, businesses operate and employees work away from the business premises.
When employees telecommute or work from home, it’s expected that modern technology will allow them to connect and perform their duties without sacrificing productivity and performance.
This new shift is transforming the traditional workplace into a virtual space thus forcing executive leadership to come up with a plan that sets high expectations and increases value on the effects of business collaboration and communication.
In this article, we are going to discuss a few simple tips that executive leaders and employees can use to boost their productivity and performance. But first, let’s talk about the benefits of remote work.
Benefits of remote work
The sudden transformation in working environments is advantageous to both employees and the business. Since some companies don’t have a diverse culture or don’t measure up to their competitors’ operational standards, remote work allows them to recalibrate their current systems and structures that might be hindering their performance and growth. After all, employee diversity, engagement, and wellness boost productivity and performance.
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, there are several key benefits that business leaders can enjoy by implementing flexible remote work policies and establishing pragmatic remote work protocols that work for everyone. These benefits affect every aspect of the business thus providing a competitive edge. They also emphasize on accountability and appreciation for systems and people that accelerate the growth of a business.
1. Talent and recruitment
By looking at remote work from the perspective of workplace talent, you’ll figure out why remote teams are advantageous to a business. The flexibility that comes with recruiting talented employees has no limits. Leadership can hire top-notch talent with the appropriate tools and policies to hire diverse teams.
Businesses that fail to adapt will lose a lot of qualified prospects to their competitors. Businesses that are unwilling to transition to some aspects of remote work will not stand a chance of competing from a recruitment perspective in the future. Remote work improves employee retention, broadens talent pool with the right skills and expertise, and offers competitive packages to talented workers because it saves costs.
2. Diversity
Remote work is not ideal for every organization out there. However, it gives most of them a chance to reconsider the diversity and dynamics of their teams to solve problems creatively. When leaders build diverse teams, their business connects easily to a wide range of clients and users. Further, diverse teams can leverage experiences, viewpoints, and variable expertise to come up with the appropriate solutions to problems that a typical team in the workplace may never consider or think of.
Diversity makes it possible for teams to be fully presented on an individual level. Employees who expose themselves to a wide range of experiences and perspectives become more open-minded, aware, and understanding. This is especially true when it comes to peer to peer learning and knowledge sharing. The best thing about remote work diversity is that it can give organizations a competitive edge single-handedly across the world.
3. Employee engagement and morale
Remote work improves employee engagement at all levels through trust, autonomy, satisfaction, and transparency. Once the executive management adopts remote work, they have to commit to improving employee engagement. When the team members work remotely, they bolter initiative and assume accountability automatically and actively. When managers trust their teams, morale and productivity go up.
Highly engaged employees are productive, profitable, loyal, and retainable. Employees who work remotely are more engaged because they feel empowered, trusted, and valued. Plus, engaged employees are happy. And this translates to high retention and profitability rates.
Staying productive while working remotely
Now that you know the advantages of working remotely, it’s time to go deeper to figure out some of the best ways to stay productive while working remotely.
1. Encourage continuous learning
If you’ve ever worked remotely before, you probably know that you cannot be a pro from day one. Working remotely is entirely different from working in the workplace. You need to rely on technology to organize your tasks, communicate with team members, and work on your tasks. To improve your productivity, you have to lean in and embrace continuous learning especially when you’re trying to master a new skill.
Don’t be too hard on yourself when you don’t figure out how the software works. Also, don’t feel guilty for being the only one who hasn’t fully embraced working remotely like your colleagues. Giving yourself time to adapt to the new environment and workflow is important.
Take your time during the workday to acquaint yourself with the software that your team will be using in the next couple of weeks. Learn the tips, tricks, shortcuts, and functions and how the software can help you become more productive. This will allow you to tackle the challenges of remote work head-on and increase your productivity.
2. Avoid the negativity loop
You should avoid it as much as you can! Spending the entire day wishing things were different, that your colleague would just reply to your messages or your tools would be more intuitive will not do you any good.
Having the chance to work remotely is a privilege and a luxury. And one that most people don’t have. Instead of focusing on the negative side, commit to making the most out of the situation at hand. Sooner or later, you’ll realize that it’s a blessing in disguise. While you might not be amused by the challenges that remote working poses, the skills you’ll develop in the process will come in handy in the future.
Start by writing down all these skills. Figure out how remote working allows you to perform at your best. This will allow you to shift your mindset from a place of scarcity and negativity to a sweet positive spot that will accelerate your growth. Now that you are reading this, it’s highly likely that remote work is a part of your life at the moment. Instead of being reluctant, adopt, and commit to it.
3. Create a to-do list
Do you get lost in your pile of work every day? Are you unable to work on tasks to their completion? Do you find yourself switching between tasks endlessly? All these are symptoms of a lack of prioritization. Working remotely can be distracting. Don’t make your life harder by failing to prioritize.
The best time to create a to-do list is the night before. Planning your day will save you a lot of time and energy in the long run. Write down all the tasks that you need to work on. Next, arrange them in order of priority. You can use the ABCDE method to prioritize (A = High priority tasks B= Important tasks C= Less important tasks D= Delegate E = Eliminate)
You should never work on a B task when an A task is not complete. High priority tasks are usually complex. However, completing them successfully on time will pay off in spades. Do what is hard and necessary instead of fun and easy activities.
4. Take short breaks regularly
Working with your colleagues in the office may help in boosting your productivity and performance. A friendly chat with a mate in the meeting room or kitchen might help you feel refreshed and alive. Plus, the variety of physical activity during the day improves your focus and health.
One of the disadvantages of working from home is that people tend to work continuously for hours and then wonder why they feel exhausted and stressed out. Do not try to work continuously for eight hours. If you do this, you’ll scatter your attention.
Research studies show that concentration levels start declining rapidly after ninety minutes of focus. Therefore, make it a rule to take short breaks after every hour. During the break, do something exciting such as stretching, chatting with friends, walking around the block, or having a healthy snack. Do anything that will help you disconnect. Taking short breaks regularly will help your body and mind recover lost energies. And this will improve your productivity and performance.
5. Block out distractions
Distractions are the number one killers of productivity and performance. Therefore, the more you eliminate distractions, the more focused you’ll be.
When you are working from home, distractions are almost impossible to avoid. The dishes need to be done, you need to clean your car, you have to do laundry, your friends are messaging you, your loved ones are watching your favorite show on TV… Your home is not suited for deep work.
However, you can avoid distractions by removing anything from sight that may distract you while working. If you don’t have a home office, it will be difficult to avoid these distractions. All you need is willingness and commitment to avoid distractions. Doing your best to eliminate distractions will improve your productivity and performance.
Conclusion
As you work remotely it’s important to set boundaries. Once the workday is over, shut your computer and step away from your desk. For remote working to be effective, leaders need to come up with flexible policies and reasonable deadlines. By following the tips that we’ve discussed, your productivity and performance will soar!
Author Bio:
Charlie Svensson is fast, engaging freelance writer. Skilled in content writing and blogging. The favorite topics of his posts are education, social media, marketing, SEO, motivation blogging and self-growth. Excellent adaptability of skills to reach diverse audiences.
