You may have used a home office for many years? Then you have probably incorporated good routines. For others, a home office is completely new. Then the idea of working from home is unfamiliar. The questions are many. Here are our tips:
It is understandable that many people have questions. As a manager, you may become unsure of what the employee is doing. As an employee, you often wonder how you should communicate with your team, manager and customers.
Home office has several advantages:
Although home offices are especially relevant in these virus times, it is good to remember that home offices will continue to be an important form of work, even after we return to normal.
Tips for how you, your customers and your employer can have a good working day from home office:
1. Home office setup
Get the office feeling – at home. Create routines with the family about when you must work undisturbed.
2. You are at work, from home
Make a clear distinction between home office and home. Follow the same routine as in the office with colleagues. Get up, get dressed, eat breakfast, have a coffee and start the working day.
It is important to be presentable when participating in meetings in the form of video conferences or Teams/Skype. You are at work.
Wear work clothes as if you were going to the office. Take them off when you’re done. Then you mark an important shift between work and leisure.
Keep your desk tidy, and clear the desk of everything that doesn’t belong there every afternoon
When you’re done for the day, you’re done. Put away everything related to work.
E-mail, online newspapers, social media and notifications are disturbances in everyday working life. Close unnecessary tabs and email accounts, and log in at regular times to stay up-to-date.
At home, there is always something to do. Many do some housework during the day and then compensate by working into the evening. Avoid it.
3. Prepare the working day – structure and planning
Have a clear plan for how you will work throughout the day. Take a few minutes to review the day’s tasks so you know exactly what to spend time on .
Have a pad and pen readily available. Write down things you have to do something about when they occur
Look over this a couple of times a day to make it clear what you are going to do with the individual case
Do you work with many balls in the air at the same time? Use planning tools actively – such as ‘tasks’ in Office 365, Teams, ClickUp, HubSpot or similar
Feel free to allow at least an extra half hour for unforeseen things.
The day before at the latest, you should plan what you will do the next day.
4. Internal collaboration on tasks
Start the day with a ‘daily check-in’ meeting. It’s a 15-20 minute internal meeting: Everyone talks about their plans today, what they need help with and what you can help others with.
In the check-in meeting, it is important not to use the time for case management, but only for planning and coordination. Set clear goals, work proven with communication and build relationships. Combine joint meetings and 1-1 meetings.
Ensure general guidelines, a kind of service agreement internally and externally. For example:
All team members must be available during core hours from 08:00 to 16:00
Communication takes place via e-mail, telephone and Teams
Messages or phone calls must be answered within 30 minutes (excluding meetings and lunch)
5. Customer meetings
When you have customer meetings and other external meetings, it is important to be well prepared and presentable, so that meetings from the home office flow as well as otherwise.
Have you not used the equipment and software for virtual meetings, i.e. video or online meetings? Then the time has come to become a racer on this – now….. Test that everything works and you are safe WELL before the meeting is to be held.
6. Social interaction
Put an extra 5-10 minutes into the internal meetings to give employees the opportunity to share/tell about what is going on outside of work.
In a home office, you lose the social aspect of the coffee machine, chatter with colleagues and the jokes over the lunch table. Facilitate social interaction during joint meetings.
Being alone can be lonely. If you live alone or work is a large part of your social life during the day, then you should consciously make a little more social plans outside of work than you usually do.
7. Breaks and breaks in the working day
In a home office, you can make exactly the breaks, drinks and food you want. Set aside time for lunch. Leave the office and eat lunch in another room.
If you do not have your own office, the working position on the sofa or kitchen stool can become unfamiliar and tiring over time.
Consider work sequences: Work 20-25 minutes concentratedly and then a five-minute break
Move daily, for example take a brisk walk or jog. Daylight and exercise help your mood and mental fitness
