The pandemic forced a lot of businesses to completely overhaul the way they operated, including having their employees work from home for months on end with little to no in-office interaction. During this time, some employees found that they thrived when allowed to work from the comfort of a home office or living room. As such, more organizations have become amenable to letting employees work remotely on an ongoing basis.
But how your can maximize the effectiveness of a partial or total work-from-home strategy? We have a few recommendations that will help set remote employees up for success:
1) Provide the right technology
First and foremost, you don't want to have a situation where someone is relying on a years-old laptop to do vital work that requires cutting-edge technology, according to UC Today. As such, it's a good idea to provide people with the right computers, webcams, software and hardware to collaborate effectively — no matter if they're working 10 or 1,000 miles from your main office.
2) Get them on a schedule
For some, working from home means a little extra flexibility on their schedules, UC Today explained. They don't have to worry about being at the office at 8:30 every morning, and can instead check their email, then take the kids to school, walk the dog and so on. But you should still ask that they're at least reachable within a certain timeframe every day, so that you're not waiting hours or more for them to respond to a pressing message.
3) Don't expect them to sit at their computer all day every day
Along similar lines, when people work from home, it can be easy for them to feel rather sedentary: At an office, they would typically get up, walk around, engage in small talk with co-workers and so on, according to Urgenci. But when working from home, that goes out the window. As such, you should actively encourage your remote workers to get up, stretch, head outside for a few minutes on nice days and so on. This can actually help make them more comfortable and productive.
4) Hire for remote
Finally, it's important that you both advertise your jobs as (potentially) being remote for the right candidate, and make sure new hires can actually follow through on job duties if they're not in the office, according to PieSync. At this point, many professionals have plenty of experience working from home, so this might be easier these days, but it's still important to make sure this is an ongoing policy — as it will potentially help you stand out from the crowd.
A great work-from-home policy for your employees starts with a solid plan when it comes to management and HR, and that requires having the right professionals in place to oversee operations. YES Partners can help with that. To see some of the roles that we have already successfully placed, click here.
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