Working From Home During Coronavirus Crisis – Measures To Ensure Productivity

The onslaught of the Covid-19 pandemic has forced everyone, including small businesses to global companies, to roll out work-from-home policies in the last couple of weeks. This doesn’t come as a surprise since the World Health Organization’s announcement that coronavirus has officially reached pandemic status. While it may be a norm for a few, working from home is unchartered territory to at least two-thirds of the Indian population who rely majorly on being in a dedicated workspace with the technology required on hand and the motivation to complete their assignments on time under their bosses watchful eye so as to be able to leave the office and return to their families. Through remote working, companies are majorly figuring out how to stay focused on the task on hand and remain productive in spite of the numerous distractions at home.

To ensure business continuity, quite a few major corporations are using some kind of methods to monitor their employees productivity while remote working.  Listed below are few methods to track your remote employees productivity.

You might also be interested to read:COVID-19: India Inc Embraces Work From Home

Communication is key

Your employees cannot function unless they know what is expected of them. Thus, having a designated call at the start of the work day and/or towards the end of it helps employees feel motivated. Regular team meetings virtually to keep a tab about the work progress are some ways that employers can check their remote workers schedule. Video-conferencing tools help employers keep a healthy line of communication open between themselves and their employees. Apps like Zoom and Skype allow multiple users to engage virtually. This allows employees to hold regular team meetings and gives the employers a chance to have face time with their employees. File sharing on apps like Dropbox, Google Drive or OneDrive allows collaboration of multiple employees on the same project thus allowing employers to track each employee’s contribution on the project.

Check employees attention while remote working

The current atmosphere due to the coronavirus pandemic is unstable. Employees may find it difficult to concentrate on the job at hand and may feel tempted to access social media or other distractions. This highly affects productivity and therefore tracking employees working from home becomes critical. Making sure your team is responding well to messages and emails during work hours is a good way of gauging their participation whilst working remotely. 

Establishing a balance

Working from home may make employees have a laid back attitude. Employers need to emphasize on the need to treat it like a real job and establish a healthy balance between home and office space. Encouraging employees to assign a designated workstation can also boost productivity.

Team building

With the outbreak of the Covid-19, these are tough times with no certainty of the future. Make sure that your employees feel motivated and aren’t feeling isolated or unheard. Make time for team building sessions and be their cheerleader.

You might also be interested to read:Coronavirus Crisis: A CHRO Is The Need Of The Hour For Your Human Capital

References:

  • “Coronavirus: How to work from home, the right way” by Bryan Lufkin,13th March 2020
  • “Even if you’re working from home, your employer is still keeping track of your productivity—here’s what you need to know” by Karina Hernandez, 20th Mar 2020

Related Topics:

Comments are closed.