Two Months In - Work From Home Update

We, Like You, Continue To Acclimate To Working From Home

Many of us are now approaching 2 months of working from home on a regular basis, while this might not have been a change for folks who normally work from home or do so more often than others, for us here at eGuide it has definitely been a change from our normal daily routine of working from our River North office. 

We want to share some of our tips and lessons learned around workflow, managing a remote team, and maintaining client relationships while working from home, combined with some great content from some of our favorite platforms. 

Work Area

Having a designated work area at home is the best way to start your Work from Home (WFH) time, this space should have enough space for all your items like laptop, multiple screens, keyboard, mouse, notebook, phone, coffee, a comfortable chair and any other tools you need to complete your daily tasks. 

For our team arranging this space as close to our office desks as possible has been a great way to maintain productivity levels, continue similar workflows, and avoid distractions.

Dr. Kari Schmidt at Health Source of Wicker Park has some great tips on her Instagram of simple exercises you can do to reduce some of the fatigue and is even offering a workspace assessment for FREE! We’ve included the description below:

Make Yourself At Home with Dr. Kari Schmidt

Support your entire body with ergonomic upgrades in your workspace. This doctor-led session was created to improve the layout and function of home office areas. Making simple changes, at no cost, allow you to benefit from healthy new routines instead of experiencing chronic soreness, poor posture and headaches.

You can contact Kari via her website https://www.healthsourcechiro.com/

Work From Home - Daily Routine

Our clients and friends know how much we love our Trello boards and how powerful they can be as an organization and project management tool. Our team and partner boards allow us to keep track of project status, due dates, deliverables, the overall organization of tasks, and even quick communication and status updates.

Keep your calendar organized and up to date, whether you’re using Google Calendar, Outlook calendar or any other service, this is a great way to make sure you don’t forget about meetings, due dates, personal activities that you need to fit on your workday. It also makes collaboration and scheduling easier, your coworkers or manager can simply look at your calendar and see if you’re available - Who doesn’t hate the never-ending email chain trying to schedule a meeting?

Team Communication

We’re not gonna cover the list of video conferencing options because let’s face it at this point we’ve probably tried them all and nobody wants another video call. As a team we have been using Slack during this extended work from home period, it has been a great way to replace text group chats, we’re able to create multiple channels by team or direct message a specific person, all from one app. We even have a non-work channel to share gifs and pet pictures. 

One of the mistakes some organizations have made during this time is an abuse of the video conferencing options if something would have been an email or a phone call during normal times then it should still be an email or call during work from home times, no need to make it a video call just because the platform is available. 

Managing a Remote Team

One of our favorite platforms Trello recently published an awesome article titled Managers: Here's A 7-Step Practical Guide To Leading A Remote Team, one of our favorites parts from this article is:

“Managers of remote teams do all the same things in-office managers do: Hiring, onboarding, performance reviews, weekly check-ins, and more. We just do them a little… differently. Yes, we use many (many) Zoom calls to keep up facetime with our teams, but managing employees who work from home 100% of the time takes more strategic thinking and intentional planning than simply recreating in-office scenarios in a digital world.

Whether you’re trying to quickly adapt to a remote management situation, or settling into the role for the long-term, the same fundamentals need to be put in place to build solid communication, performance, and employee growth.”

eGuide Talks Working From Home - Two Months In

You can check out our team check-in and gain some more insight by watching below.

Everyone Loves An Infographic

The team over at Alliance Virtual Offices put together an awesome infographic with some quick tips when working from home.