A WFH (Work From Home) Checklist

How to work from home effectively? How to interact with team? How to give presentations to customers online? How can organizations rebuild or reorient themselves into the new culture?

This is not especially easy given the fact it is new to most people. Many of them might have been used to working for a few hours from home. Now, WFH means conceptually redesigning a part of your home as the workplace. A designated work place should be sacro-sanct. At the same time, one must not be immune to the fact the one is surrounded by their loved ones and a certain amount of distraction is bound to happen.

Here is a brief 3-point checklist for the organizations and the employees.

For the organizations:

1. Set up the base well i.e. provide for the best-in-class infrastructure

• A stable, high-speed internet connection is a must. Reimburse the employees. The employees are saving the organizations a lot of money by being at home. This is the least they should get in order to discharge the responsibilities.
• Devices (Desktop / Laptop) loaded with current software / Anti-virus
• Consistent collaboration tools for performing meetings, audio / video sessions with colleagues and / or customers
• Ensure security compliance / VPN availability / awareness training. Lot of security restrictions may be rendered irrelevant at home. Be mindful of that and inculcate standards

2. Publish business etiquette

• Agree on working hours calendar (on a weekly or monthly basis)
• Specify an “All-hands-available” window wherein every employee is expected to be online and can be accessed
• Consistent calendar sharing with required permissions
• Communicate constantly and consistently

3. Establish new support and care mechanisms

• Host virtual get-togethers
• Designate fun time / fun zone
• Celebrate WINS
• Bring life to festivals instead of a token “Wish you all…” and strengthen family bonding
• Provide support mechanisms to reach out in case mental ill-health

For the employees:

1. Set up a “Chinese Wall” between household and office work

• Some people designate a special area, inside the house, towards this purpose. This is a NO GO for other members. I have heard of people, dressed up in office wear, working from such area. This may not be feasible for everyone. It is important to designate a section (whether it is barred for others or not) and follow working protocol.
• Use a good quality ear phones / ear plugs / noise cancelling equipment.
• Adopt good ergonomic practices. This can include working whilst standing, moving around every hour, taking breaks etc.
• Learn to switch off and resist the tendency to be available 24*7 online. WFH doesn’t mean that you are expected to be available all the time. It also doesn’t mean that you can prioritize other things over office work.

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2. Working effectively

• You should master the online ways of working, online meetings for effective work management. For example, one doesn’t have to use the phone all the time. Tools like MS Teams, Lync etc. provide opportunities for chatting.
• Ensure you understand the audio / video bridge details / other collaboration tools.
• It is not wise to do back-to-back meetings. Have your heard of people remarking that their entire days were taken up by meetings? It is not warranted and reflects inefficiency.
• To make meetings more effective, be clear with the purpose, pre-requisites and decision criteria. If someone comes ill-prepared and takes up huge time of everyone, it would be more prudent to reschedule the meetings.
• Use meeting recording function and notes function to share the minutes. It saves time by sending documents.
• Break the project into smaller chunks where appropriate.

3. Be human

• Show empathy, concern and understanding for your team members / colleagues.
• Be magnanimous when required and give freedom to manage their internal schedules subject to an overarching and agreed protocol.
• “Look” at your team members; get into video calls at least weekly.
• Understand their issues and work with them to solve 

As I had explained in my earlier blog post, companies have discovered a golden goose in WFH. It is better to apply our mind, instill some disciplined process and get used to the new ways of working.

Good luck…