The pandemic has disrupted everyone’s rhythm, making the freelance work that so many people have come to expect a life of video conferences in pajamas, stroking cats in bed and answering emails a reality. But what about working from home?
Telecommuting has both disadvantages and advantages over traditional working. The biggest advantage of telecommuting is that you can remove the barriers of physics and be more flexible in dealing with various situations. For example, in this outbreak, if you can’t go to the office, at least you can greatly reduce the loss by telecommuting.
Since February 3rd, we’ve been working remotely from home. Our team has been working for almost three weeks now.
I personally and my team had never tried telecommuting before, but this time, thanks to the pandemic, we tried telecommuting.
From a personal point of view, the advantage of working from home is that you save time commuting. Usually on the way to work, it takes dozens of minutes or even more than an hour; While at work at home, get up and wash some cough, dress can be started (of course, it is estimated that some people wash some cough dress is not required, 😄).
Of course, because work and life are together, the office atmosphere is not so good, leading to work easily disturbed, family activities may affect you. Maybe you’re in a teleconference, or you’re doing something quiet and your family calls you for dinner or something.
It’s better to have a separate office space, but not everyone can afford it. It is important to use a separate office space if you can.
I’ve been working from home for almost two weeks, and I’m a little nostalgic for the office chair, even though I usually joke about how lame the office chair is. But work so many days, only to discover how important the special office chair, because I mainly sit on the sofa office, one day, will find back pain. It seems that sofa is really only suitable for lazy activities.
While telecommuting tools are already well developed, since the pandemic, many companies have developed software to help telecommuting. But it’s still not a substitute for face-to-face communication, or all companies would be spending a lot of money on renting houses, buying office equipment, and gathering people together.
Of course, this is because telecommuting is a passive choice caused by the pandemic. I think if you choose to work from home, I believe that you will be prepared, it will be much better.
As a team manager, you also need to pay attention to the situation of the whole team.
Due to the haste of this outbreak, some members did not prepare computers. Before resuming work, the staff’s computer configuration was counted. Some people do not have their own computer, the configuration of some computers is relatively poor, there are relatives and friends to borrow. Fortunately, only one of them was unable to return to work. The others were all equipped.
Thanks to the development of The Times, the Internet has been very common. In our team, some are in cities, some are in towns, and some are in rural areas. Now rural areas are basically connected to the Internet. My hometown is in the countryside, home in the first two years have been connected to the network. Of course, the network has good and bad, network instability or will cause work and communication difficulties.
A few days ago, a business owner and I were talking about how to ensure the final work efficiency, how to prevent the situation of labor.
I think for team telecommuting to be effective, management needs to manage it.
First of all, we need to establish the morning meeting system. For example, when I was in management, I would always communicate with each group in the morning meeting on Monday. Then on other working days, as required, meetings are held at irregular intervals. Having an early meeting will help the team members who are not in good condition to get into working state for a while, and let the team members know what to do, the possible problems, and the coordination of resources between different groups. You can adjust the time and rating of the morning meeting according to your own situation, but it is recommended not to spend too much time.
Secondly, a report system should be established. The report system allows employees to summarize what they have done every day and also gives managers a feedback index. Managers can see what employees are doing every day and follow up on the progress of projects.
Working remotely and without face-to-face communication can easily lead to a loss of purpose. The lack of goals can make employees feel lost and at a loss. Therefore, it is more important to set goals. In this way, employees can be clear about their task objectives and actively think and push forward tasks instead of passively waiting and accepting tasks.
Every employee needs to be clear about what the goals are, although some people end up being responsible for small, tedious breakdowns. But having a big goal and direction keeps everyone on the same page and knows what the end result is.
Task breakdown is also very important, because for many employees, a big goal will make them feel overwhelmed, young employees may need small and specific tasks.
Generally speaking, I define an overall goal, and then ask the leaders of each group to break it down and go through the breakdown in the morning meeting.
Why have the team leader dismantle the task? First, there are many groups. If the specific tasks of each group need to be disassembled by the manager, it is bound to cause the time shortage of the manager. Second, the leader of the group knows better how to disassemble tasks, because they are faced with specific tasks every day. Third, the group leader to dismantle the task itself is also an important way to improve their initiative and enthusiasm.
Choose collaboration tools. Now there are many remote collaborative office tools, feibook, enterprise wechat, Tencent documents, graphite documents and other tools are open to the public.
We mainly use enterprise wechat for daily communication and video (audio) meetings. Of course, when communicating with customers, Tencent Cloud Conference or Huawei WeLink is sometimes used.
Daily documentation, task assignments and work feedback are managed through graphite documents, which are online documents. The benefits of online documentation are easy to share and collaborate with; It is more efficient than local Word and Excel. For documents to be formally sent to customers, it can also be exported to Word and Excel.
The above mainly said team management situation, for individuals, how should telecommuting better deal with?
The first thing to do is to change the attitude that telecommuting is just like working in a company, just in a different location. This outbreak has a lot to do with everyone. This time, due to the impact of the epidemic, some small and medium-sized enterprises will go bankrupt, unemployment will increase, household income will decline, that is, the second wave of demand and supply shocks. This shock, I believe, will not end in April or May, but may continue to delay. Therefore, everyone needs to take good care of their responsibilities, seriously do what they should do. It’s not just about protecting the interests of the company, it’s about protecting our own interests. People should also be more understanding of their boss, this time, they should be the most anxious group of people. Fear of staff infection, not to return to work company benefit will be affected.
To achieve a good working state, you need to make your daily routine regular, not just the time period of work, including the daily life and rest, should be regular. For example, the first two days of my own state was not good, because before, basically play, movies, cards and so on. After I started to work, I began to restore my daily habits, including going to bed and getting up on time, drastically reducing entertainment activities, starting daily exercise and eating a reasonable diet, which helped me to quickly recover to work.
A good working environment can greatly improve work efficiency. A good environment includes comfortable chairs and work tables, free from other factors and people, etc. To avoid interruptions, it is best to have separate work areas. Of course, many people are working from home this time because of the pandemic, so not everyone can create a good working environment. So try to create a good working environment.
Plan your time. It’s best to keep your working hours at the same time as your normal working hours so that everyone is working at the same time. Customize yourself a Todo List and prioritize the breakdown tasks. There are many online articles and courses explaining how to manage time, so I won’t go into details here.
In addition, taking the initiative to report and communicate work details can promote more efficient progress. For example, I take the initiative to report my work to my superiors and share my work achievements in my work group. This has the advantage of letting others know what you are doing; In addition, you can also let others give you suggestions, suggestions, points out the shortcomings, improve in advance; Instead of waiting until the general report, only to find a lot of problems; Third, there is a certain amount of communication and feedback, can promote the enthusiasm of work.
The outbreak may not end so quickly, especially people in Wuhan, many of us, need to think longer term.
Of course, I still hope that the epidemic can end as soon as possible and the whole society can get back on track as soon as possible.
Finally, if you (or your team) are working remotely, feel free to join us. Welcome to the public account “ITman Biao Shu”. Biao Shu, with more than 10 years of development experience, is now the company’s system architect, technical director, technical trainer, career planner. In-depth research in computer graphics, WebGL, front-end visualization. Strong interest in programmer thinking ability training and training, programmer career planning.
