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…

A peek into Post-COVID "New Normal"

We all firmly believe the current lockdown and related restrictions due to COVID situation will be withdrawn soon. Some of us are more optimistic than others! Whatever it is, there would come a state where the current challenges to day to day life would disappear. 

The bigger question, then, is what will happen to the post-restriction period of day-to-day life? What will be the NEW-NORMAL ?

In economics, we have heard of elastic stimulus. As the stimulus gets in, changes happen; as its gets out, changes stop and original state returns. There is also something called plastic stimulus where the after-effects linger in varying proportions. The COVID situation can be analysed using this view point.

First, a brief summary of changes happening some possibly with unintended and unavoidable consequences:

• Education – Major impact. Institutions and hostels closed. They are trying to restore normalcy through online learning.
• Industries – Those service industries like IT/BPO, working from home has been enforced. Where there are restrictions due to regulations or lack of equipment, they are being addressed one by one. Home offices with proper equipment / software is being set up. Airlines, manufacturing shops, auto and ancillary factories are shut.
• Hospitality & Leisure – Malls, retail stores, local kirana shops, gyms, cinema halls, parks and libraries closed. Online entertainment is on the high. More self-learning classes like Yoga, cooking, hair-cutting etc.
• Religion – All places of worship are closed. We have seen virtual services.
• Sports – Major sporting events have been called off or postponed indefinitely.
• Government – Trying to do its bit with fiscal stimulus as well as containing the impact of the virus.
• Online food orders (Uber eats or Swiggy), /TV viewing, time with family and children, in-house cooking, e-commerce purchase, higher usage of online media, gaming industry.

When the vaccine is found and all infections under control …, what will be the permanent effect of these?

• Working from home is likely to become de rigueur. The companies might have found an inspirational cost reduction measure. CEOs of such companies will be thrilled as most of them double up as COOs.

• What will happen to educational institutions? Can we imagine schools and colleges declaring at least one day a week as "work from home"? This will help to establish the required infrastructure, test it for rainy days and train teachers to switch instantly from real to virtual classroom. More innovative software platforms and solutions will fuel this transition.

• There could be a spurt in the creative side of humans. Why? More time available. More quality time with lot of flexibility to adjust schedules. More time with life partners and children possibly leading to rediscovering the joy of human beings with frailties and mistakes. More magnanimity. More give and take and possibly fewer divorces! or will it be the other way? Too much of coming together might lead to more break-ups?

• The joy of quality dining experience may come back.

• People will have gotten used to more entertainment at home. Netflix and the like will rule, innovate and come up with new series practically every day! Internet based TV will be the order of the day. Going to cinema halls may not be the preferred mode.

• The bane of many industries including travel and face to face meetings will slowly disappear. The joy of virtual meetings (whether out of compulsion or norm) will override everything. People will continue to be as effective or ineffective as before!

• Telemedicine might become more practical and effective.

• Phenomenal levels of innovation will happen.

• Government will be forced to rethink its industrial and fiscal policies, setting up of export zones etc. It will go back to to drawing board to decide on this. Allocation of health expenditure might be on the rise.

Long term gainers – Personal & Healthcare, Technology, E-commerce, Food processing

Long term losers – Hospitality, Tourism, Leisure, Aviation, Maritime, Auto etc.