Staying Productive while Staying at Home

Staying productive… is easier said than done. In fact, from self-help books, hundreds of apps and even this article, we’re constantly reminded that we’re a lot better at being everything but productive.

In business, maintaining productivity is vital and with COVID-19 were many businesses have now had to send employees to work from home, keeping the workplace productive takes on a whole new meaning and a new set of challenges.

At SAENICSA | Accounting & Tax Services, we have for the past 3 weeks been working at home. It has been a challenge, but there have been some positive notes too. In this article we’ll consider a few recommendations that we hope will also help you and your business in having high productivity, even in quarantine.

ZOOM, Meet or Team – Use video calls for quick checkups.

In another article, TIPS ON WORKING AT HOME LIKE A PRO , we provided a few tips to work better from home. One of the suggestions we mentioned was that it is good to maintain a routine similar to that of what you may have had prior to working from home. It was explained that it is a good idea to start your day around the same time and following through with some of the same habits as if you were going to go that day on your normal daily commute to the workplace.

To reinforce that need a good idea is to schedule periodic quick video calls with your team, even if they’re just to say good morning. Usually when someone is on a video call, they want to present themselves favorably, so this means that team members most likely won’t be in pajamas. Instead, they will probably have some work like attire that will show that at least they are up and ready for the day.

Don’t expect a suit and tie, remember everyone is at home, but don’t be too lax either.

Help with the cost of equipment.

If your team is working from home the majority most likely have some pseudo-office like setup that may not be the best, but at least it is functional. They may also be using some of their own office supplies and equipment in lieu of not being able to use the office as normal.

It would be a good idea to take some time to check in and ask your team individually the type of set up that they have because it just may not be up to par for the type of work that they do.

There is nothing worse than being unproductive because of a slow computer or terrible internet, because it is not your fault and there really isn’t anything that can be done about that unless you upgrade your plan or equipment.

So to avoid those types of problems try considering whether or not a small budget could be set aside to either purchase or subsidize the cost of some service or equipment upgrades.

Additionally, if right now your offices are closed and your computer equipment and office supplies are just sitting there doing nothing, then it may be advantageous to consider distributing that equipment and supplies to your employees to help them work better.

Leveraging Software to Improve Productivity

The roles that management may have implemented and tasks that each key person in an office environment will be greatly affected if their respective roles cannot be extrapolated quickly and effectively from a physical environment to a digital cloud environment.

The good news is that today a plethora of CRM and business management platforms and SAAS (Software as a Service) exist that not only are very robust, but are now very cost effective. Additionally, many of these services can be acquired on a month to month service agreement that can be maintained during the duration of the affects of COVID-19 and then rescinded once management decides that normal office hours need to be resumed.

Since the effects that COVID-19 have had on our economies have been so great, businesses in turn need to respond in kind and act quickly to establish systems and procedures to ensure the continuity of their businesses in light of such adverse circumstances.

So it is important to neither under or over react, but what has become clear is that we cannot continue business as “normal”, we all need to adapt.