How Can We Maintain Productivity While Working From Home?

Many people who have been lucky to retain their jobs during the pandemic have still been required to work remotely. While a gradual shift from office work to remote work has been coming for the past decade or so, the pandemic has forced many to do so whether they like it or not. Some businesses that were once reluctant to allow their employees to work remotely suddenly found themselves with no choice but to. Either they coordinated with their employees to set up a work-from-home system, or they risked having many employees on their books unable to work being unproductive.

When it comes to understanding how to maintain productivity when working from home, we must consider the type of job being done and the type of business being run. Some may require constant attention with strict deadlines, whilst others may be more relaxed. Below are some ways that we can maintain a higher level of productivity while working from home.

1) Use productivity apps

Modern problems require modern solutions. For many businesses with remote workers, it can pay to make sure your employees are working when they are supposed to be, especially if they are being paid on the basis of the time they “work”. Apps such as Hubstaff track screen movement and take random screenshots that the employer can later on view, checking to see if the employee is actually sticking to the task at hand. Although there is an air of Big Brother about this, it is hard to argue the importance for a business of ensuring that their workforce are spending their working hours on their actual tasks.

2) Use Meeting software

Pronestor, Zoom and Microsoft Teams have all seen their demand skyrocket as the need for meeting scheduling software and virtual meeting platforms increased due to enforced work-from-home setups and online classes. Such software has allowed many businesses to run the operations at a normal level and in many cases, actually become more productive than how they were previously.

Using such communication tools will benefit productivity as there are less barriers to getting work done, and in fact, the ability to communicate with colleagues and clients actually increases.

3) Take regular, short breaks

Working from home will, for many, be a completely different working environment from an office or formal workplace. Homes may be environments less conducive to working, especially if there is family around and other general homely distractions. With this in mind we recommend taking short regular breaks (say a 5-10 minute break at the end of every hour) to stretch your legs and look at something other than your screen. By taking such breaks, this will lower the chances of burnout that may occur quickly when you do not clearly separate your work and your home life.

Above are three effective ways of maintaining productivity at home. While two of the points are software applications, the final point is something that does not cost anything to implement but can have just as much of an effect.

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