Staying productive while working from home
Naadira Jumat
The onset of COVID- 19 worldwide has seen an unprecedented disruption to our daily routine and as easy as it sounds, working from home can be challenging, as most of us have discovered.
The commute to work is shaved off so you can get an early start to your day; maybe breakfast with your family and do an early morning workout before you actually sit down to work. But what about making sure you stay productive and engaged right through the day?
Here are some tips on how to make the best of working from home.
Business development analyst Naadira Jumat tells us that “this phase we are going through now is a good learning for companies to evaluate if most functions can be made a work from home experience as time and money is saved on office space, commuting and resources.”
To stay productive a routine must be followed, says Naadira. She wakes up to her usual weekday alarm, attends to her personal routine, then checks her emails, schedules meetings via Skype and corresponds with her team.
An hour’s lunch break and a nap (if work isn’t urgent) can also be availed of, she says, highlighting that clocking out at 5.30 p.m. is needed because working from home doesn’t change your availability to 24/7.
Dressing up as if you are actually going to work while it may seem pointless is more likely to see you stay focused rather than lounging about in your pajamas.
“Working in bed is a bad idea. You can get nothing done. Set up a work station -a dining table or any table would be ideal,” advises consultant Taahera Cuttilan.
Make sure you can keep your laptop, phone and other essentials at hand. Otherwise, the excuses you will find to wander about your house (or to your fridge) is frankly concerning.
The daughter of the family being expected to do a lot of chores can be the most stressful part of working from home for some. Factor in having to warn the whole household when a work call is about to happen so that colleagues don’t realise how loud your family is, she says.
Architect Tammy Bohoran highlights the importance of keeping essentials handy and your workstation equipped. “Plenty of food, hydration and the most uncomfortable seat at home would do to focus.”
Her dog Chloe distracts her the most, she chuckles. So make sure that your distractions (no matter how adorable they are) are sated with attention during breaks.
Waruni Batugahage and Bani Chandrasena highlight another factor about working from home – the presence of children.
“Childcare solutions will be critical at home or in the neighbourhood to make parents productive,” Bani shares. With kids also being cooped up at home, the temptation is to just leave everything and spend time with them; in this situation striking the right balance is imperative which comes back to having a strict routine.
“As a mum, working from home is beneficial (although sometimes you want to just hide in your room), because you can take care of your kids and not need strangers to look after them,” Waruni tells us adding that she keeps her children occupied by giving them arts and crafts to do or making them ‘work’ as well by sitting next to her and learning their alphabet.
| It’s all about time management | |
 Moms Do Digital - Riyaza and Varuni For Varuni Seneviratne and Riyaza Jaffar, co-founders of the digital marketing agency, ‘Moms Do Digital’ working from home was already the norm. “Don’t waste your data and time on facetime or video conferencing; you don’t need to see each other to get work done or even discuss matters,” they say, stressing that sticking to basic communication resources such as Whatsapp saves a lot of time and energy especially when it comes to sharing files, discussing concepts and more. As working mums they recommend parents “always keep a kit of new or hardly played with toys or a favourite movie for kids” when attending to urgent work. Take advantage of the time when the children are playing, napping or even watching a cartoon, they add. “Keep all the brainstorming, discussions and researching for the night when everyone’s in bed. We usually have our discussions and conceptualize campaigns at night,” they say adding that tea and a snack by the side helps. Director of Operations and Projects at AmPark Consulting Services (Pvt) Pavithri Attanayake-Meepegama says, “It’s important to stick to your timetable but in the event there are important deliverables, you will have to work extra and that’s just a given. It’s about time management and knowing what you can do and when you can do it.” Having a list of personal and corporate goals also helps Pavithri focus on staying on top of things both in her home life and work life.
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| Connectivity the key | |
 Thirukumar Nadarasa Chief Executive Officer of Hutchison Telecommunications, Thirukumar Nadarasa explained some of the protocols they have put in place. “What we have actioned is for all the managers and critical operational staff to be connected through an established VPN (Virtual Private Network) connectivity so that our key operational staff (engineer, IT, technicians, etc) can login to our network online from home through a secure connection,” Mr. Nadarasa said. Their managers and executives are all equipped with laptops that have the software ‘Microsoft Teams’. This allows members to hold virtual meetings from remote locations, upload presentations, documents and more which can be viewed and worked on by different people at the same time; ensuring cohesive collaboration and input by team members. Their contact centre enables agents to work from home by establishing special Whatsapp, Viber, SMS and email channels for continued handling of urgent inquiries. Susiko Bakers CEO Suwimal Rupasinghe has a different challenge as most of their team needs to operate by going in to work. By ensuring that their accounting and procurement teams are fully productive whilst being at home, it cuts the time that other employees are out in the field. “Our accounting staff and procurement team coordinate with suppliers that are operating and find a way to get the ingredients to the main bakery every day for the production team to work on,” Mr. Rupasinghe said. Investing in ICT and logistics is the way forward, he believes. “Many companies in developed countries or tiger economies like Taiwan and South Korea have no issue with lockdowns due to the advancement of the delivery systems, ICT apps and facilities being a norm,” he said. |