Companies all over the world have forced traditional office employees to start working from home in order to keep them safe from the coronavirus. This transition is now being coined as “the world’s largest work-from-home experiment.”
Before the coronavirus outbreak, less than 5 million people worked from home and doing so was seen as a niche position. Now, this major component of the future of work has become a reality for millions of workers. For companies making this shift for the first time, adjusting to remote working can be difficult, but there are steps that can be taken to make this transition seamless for everyone.
Creating a virtual office keeps employees engaged and connected. Start multiple chat rooms on Slack that focus on different topics, whether it is company-related announcements or a water cooler room to talk about personal topics.
Using video conferencing tools is also vital in keeping colleagues connected. As social distancing has forced many into isolation, seeing and hearing coworkers can create a sense of oneness. Resources like Zoom allow for screen-sharing, which also makes it easier to keep everyone on the same page as far as tasks go.
There are numerous project and collaboration tools that also make organizing work tasks easy. For instance, Asana is a task management platform that assigns work to certain people, provides a deadline and notifies others when the job has been completed. Google Docs is also an easy way to store documents in the cloud and offer access to other workers.
