Global Quarantine: Work From Home Tips During Covid-19

While humanity is facing the global pandemic of coronavirus, it puts our frightened faces into the pie of new challenges in all areas of our lives. Economic values are shaken. Isolation is a necessary action companies should be taking immediately. The question is how to effectively organize work from home?

Is a threat real though? World Health Organization confirmed the Covid-19 to be a “pandemic”, BBC reports. Coronavirus is not a far-away myth now.

But even before we saw the Covid-19 outbreak, the tendency to work from home was gaining momentum. Which means, for some areas of business, this experience would serve as amortization. In a survey of 7,000 workers by FlexJobs, 65% said they’re more productive working from home, pointing out such benefits as fewer interruptions from co-workers, and reduced stress from commuting and office politics.

If you are in the tech, ecommerce or any industry located “on a web”  — work from home is a reality. With a bunch of management and communication apps, cloud computing services, and product feeds automation the mission seems real. Google and Microsoft are even developing enhanced teleconferencing tools for free to support a “work from home” mode.

If you have any upcoming conferences and meetings —  be ready to cancel or make it virtual. Loads of companies, including Google and Facebook, made necessary sacrifices. According to eMarketer, the total loss from canceled events will exceed $500 million.

Social distancing is a real saver, as China experience shows. Though working from home can be unstructured and lonesome. That is why we felt it as our obligation to break down what you should know to stay productive amid the Covid-19 pandemic.

Tips on how to be effective while working from home

1) Setting is everything. Though we have an ability to lounge around in our pajamas, it can distract from work. Take a shower, get dressed, organize a working space, where you won’t be disturbed by family members or being tempted by a fully-stocked fridge.

2) One of the major pains of working remotely is the ability to organize effective communication. Using external apps for group chats and calls (Slack, Microsoft Teams), file sharing (Google Docs) and video sharing (ShareX or Skype) could save the boat. Moreover, the feeling of being a part of the community will help to not go insane.

3) Task managers or Project Management tools gonna be especially in need in times of Covid-19 isolation. If you’re not yet using task planners, go ahead and check Trello and Jira, where the latter one is more sophisticated and would do for companies, managing complex scenarios.

4) Have a proper tech: does every team member have all the necessary hi-tech to work from home?

5) Make sure all of the employees have Norton antivirus, a secure Wi-Fi connection and a VPN to encrypt corporate data and eliminate cybersecurity risks.

6) Trust. Instead of checking how much time each member of your team works, concentrate on the results and the behavior.

7) Remember to take breaks…and go back to work. Working and sleeping/chilling in one environment posts a threat of merging of those habits. As well as you might forget to have proper meals, not to seem ineffective working remotely, you can let work slip from memory. Time management skills are crucial here.

8) At the end of the day, it’s important to let yourself get unplugged. Usually, it’s commuting that separates those two parts of life. During coronavirus quarantine you can create some after-work habits, like drinking a coffee, taking a shower, do a finished-work-dance or whatsoever.

Many big companies are taking big actions to be socially responsible. Amazon, for example, put $350 million globally to increase pay by $2 for workers helping support people to safely stay at home and get stuff delivered to their doors. The big A also hired 100,000 temporary workers to handle an increased ecommerce stream. Now sellers have to prepare to be fully stocked — otherwise, penalties of Amazon algorithms would be ruthless. Now the market speed plays a highly important role, as well as being able to push and update your product content in time. Companies are now jumping on using product content syndication automation tools, which is the best decision for ecommerce sellers.

Remote work breaks social bonds, at the same time pushing us to be creative in our ways to stay together on a distance. Don’t panic if the first two days seemed chaotic. Consistently done work from home improves with time and experience. Be safe, wash your hands and keep track of your mental health as well as Jira tickets.