11 Best Practices for Working Remotely

This can also positively impact employee wellbeing and staff motivation, says Iyengar. According to LinkedIn, the number of remote jobs advertised on the platform has increased four times since June 2020. LinkedIn’s research found that remote job postings resulted in a 20% increase in the geographical diversity of applicants. As companies prepare to make remote working permanent, cultural change will play a crucial role in building new, successful work environments. Believe it or not, one way to work from home productively is to dive into your to-do list as soon as you wake up.

how to be successful working remotely

Prior to her academic career, Professor Larson worked for 15 years in international finance and operations leadership, most recently as Director of International Finance at R.R. Luckily, remote working has been made easy thanks to innovative technology. You can install a What is Agile Testing virtual or hosted PBX that connects to your IP or internet phone wherever you are, be it at home or at a local coffee shop. With custom cloud PBX systems, you will improve your relationship with your clients and communicate seamlessly with them using any of your devices.

The benefit of starting your freelance business while still employed is that it reduces the financial strain experienced by any new business. One of the tips for doing this is folding the possibility of going remote into your next promotion cycle. With the right food to keep energy levels high and sound sleep to refresh your body and mind, you can make a success of working from home. An unhealthy diet can affect productivity and drain energy. When I switched to a healthier diet, it made me function better and get the most from my routine.

Over-Communicate With Your Colleagues

Most remote workers are indeed enjoying the ability to have a more flexible work arrangement, according to a recent Robert Half survey of U.S. workers. Nearly two-thirds (64%) of respondents said they don’t miss working in an office. And more than half (57%) said that working remotely has allowed them to make a lifestyle change without negatively impacting their career. Access to consistent Wi-Fi will be your first consideration.

how to be successful working remotely

The infinite whiteboard is your canvas for sharing ideas, sketching projects, and planning work. Use it for work or play to promote team connection and streamline communication and collaboration from afar. Remote workers typically value and appreciate greater flexibility and autonomy over their work and schedules. This can translate to a positive culture of mutual trust and accountability. Plus, when workers have fewer organic opportunities to connect with their team members in person, they may be more engaged with team-building activities that foster connection. 62% of employees believe working remotely positively impacts engagement but only 5% are likely to stay at their company long-term.

As a fully-distributed company ourselves, leading work and travel programs, we have a few tips and tricks up our sleeves for how to work from home or abroad. Providing clear expectations of when each channel should be used can help to avoid both miscommunication and duplicative communication. Plus, it helps everyone feel more comfortable and confident when connecting with team members.

strategies for building a remote work culture

So, use the time to start and finish something from your to-do list before changing the load. You might have heard that listening to just two or three songs in the shower can help you save water. And it’s true; hearing a few of your favorite songs start and end, one after another, can remind you how long you’ve been in the bathroom and shorten your wash time. For instance, a bad-performance router Mobile Developer Job Description App Developer Description can take the steam right off your enthusiasm to work, so it’s better to invest in a high-performance router. Unfortunately, it’s hard to find things to help you reach that level of busyness when you’re at home — your motivation can just swing so easily. HubSpot’s principal marketing manager, Pam Vaughan, suggests focusing on something that maintains your rhythm (in her case, it’s her daughter).

This not only allows you to monitor and support individual employees’ performance, but it also gives you a clearer picture of the entire team’s performance so nothing falls through the cracks. Since remote employees aren’t coming into your office, they won’t necessarily come equipped with all the tools they need to be successful. Before they even start work, make sure they have what they need to get started, such as Wi-Fi capacity, user logins, and access, conferencing tools. You might even include a stipend for workers to use to set up their own work-from-home office and desk station. For example, you may want to consider setting up a short, monthly “coffee chat” by video with various teammates just to catch up on work and personal news.

  • When the line between “work” and “home” starts to blur, you might find yourself stuck to your computer screen for a longer period .
  • Make time for activities other than work communication to foster team connection remotely.
  • Learn how to take your remote job on the road as you travel the world.

Every company that uses Google Workspace should be using Nira. You’ll see how simple, quick and easy access control can be. Once the template is filled out, I make sure to go over the postmortem during a meeting with the key team members who were involved to make sure we didn’t miss anything. Whenever a project at Nira is complete, we run through a postmortem.

And there’s always lipstick and a tube of mascara nestled alongside her computer. “You need something nearby that you can put on real quick, so you are ready to meet the world,” she says. As tempting as it may be, How to Revert a Merge Commit Already Pushed to the Remote Branch in Git resist the urge to stay in your PJs all day long and dress for work every day. Not only will you want to look professional on video meetings, but getting dressed in the morning puts your brain in “work” mode.

As much as team messaging apps are excellent venues for socializing, they tend to create distractions, too; check out these tips on how not to get overwhelmed by Slack. Use a VPN whenever you’re connected to a network that you don’t control. That includes Wi-Fi at co-working spaces, cafes, libraries, airports, hotels, and so forth. Organizations often have their own VPNs that off-site employees need to access certain servers or websites that store information meant only for internal use.

My team has the tools and resources needed to support remote work. Create a plan and work on cultivating a strong culture for the long run. People want to know that they matter—and this doesn’t change when they work outside the office. But working remotely can make it easy for employee contributions to go unnoticed. Slack is a good option for keeping team communication clear and fun—from tracking work and checking in to fostering team connection with water-cooler chats and sub-channels for special interests. There are also challenges to remote work that can impact culture.

Cherish opportunities to connect with colleagues on a personal level

It also helps to move your eyes off screen regularly, even if it’s a micro-break of 10–20 seconds. The reality for many companies is that working remotely is here to stay. And, while that comes with a number of benefits, it also presents some challenges for leaders. Rather than simply falling into habits that have emerged from a sudden shift to working remotely, leaders should take the time to make sure their teams are getting the most out of working remotely.

With this structure in place, working from home will not cause your work to invade your personal life. However, without things like an in-person meeting schedule to break up your day, you can easily lose focus or burn out. When working in an office, your morning commute can help you wake up and feel ready to work by the time you get to your desk. At home, however, the transition from your pillow to your computer can be much more jarring. When your office starts working from home, you’ll likely miss the casual social interactions with colleagues you’re used to throughout the day. When working from home, you don’t have the small talk and other activities that make each day at the office unique.

Tips on How to Work From Home or Remotely | Remote Year

Fight boredom and loneliness by frequent communication with other employees. Reach out to them through video chat via apps like Zoom and Slack, a hosted phone system, or however else your company communicates. As a remote worker, you can expect to be video conferencing often during the workweek. So, consider investing in a high-quality webcam that has HD resolution, so you can always look sharp. Also, be sure to set up good lighting in your workspace and use a quality microphone.

Keeping your working hours in check is one of the top tips for working from home or while touring the globe. You add structure to your work life so that you know what you should be doing at a particular time. By doing this, you spend less time planning and arguing with yourself over what task to handle first. To ensure that you’re feeling supported and connected to the “real world”, we recommend becoming a part of a remote community – virtually or in person at a local coworking space or collective. Working in person means regular collaboration, informal check-ins, the opportunity to see and respond to body language and more natural accountability. In that same study noted above, employees reported that the opportunity for a flexible schedule is the greatest benefit of working remotely.

And if you’re a manager, ask the team how they are doing often. Productivity flourishes in healthy environments where you can concentrate with minimal distractions and clutter. With this in mind, your first step to successful remote working is to set up an organized and comfortable workspace. This should ideally be in a quiet area of your home; somewhere that allows you to escape the distractions of everyday life and stimulate productivity.

I feel informed about the organization’s goals and priorities when working from home. Clarifying how, when, and where your team will work can improve efficiency, keep everyone aligned, and prevent conflict from the start. Here are just a few remote work statistics illustrating what the present and future of remote work might look like. For most, this means working from home or a favorite coffee shop.