During the pandemic period we tried to adapt step by step, but what will happen in the long run?
Until recently, working from home was an excellent way to reward your team and only a benefit that you occasionally granted, depending on the tasks of each employee. But more than a year has passed since the World Health Organization declared a global pandemic, hundreds of millions of people living in isolation, many of them making the sudden transition from work form office to work from home, and millions more lost their jobs.
The future seems uncertain, we still don’t know when, or if, we could return to its original way of life. In Romania, about 18.4% of employees already started working from home on a daily basis as a result of the pandemic, according to an Eurofound report.
Working from home could be the model of the future. But if millions of people no longer commute daily, for this reason the consequences could be dramatic in the most diverse fields of activity that are based on the daily mobility of people and office work. Many entrepreneurs are wondering how they can ensure that they are helping their team get through this difficult time and continue to get good results.
Even the most organized and calculated people can have problems in the context of the current pandemic, due to facing an unusual situation, which can influence their work from home.
The home office becomes a space necessary to have in every home
Working from home at the same time brought a lot of benefits for each of us. It’s all about each person’s mentality and how they perceive what’s going on. For some it was easier, others had to completely reinvent themselves, starting from the way they arrange the space of their house, to the total redecoration of it, to serve the needs of daily activities.
Some retired to a separate room in search of peace and space, others, having no other choice, took control of a corner of the room which they named their “home office.” Some had to change their work schedule, others sighed for a while after the office work old days.
Organizing an efficient work space at home does not require much preparation. On the other hand, you need a minimum of space to be able to deploy and you need to make sure you have enough light during the day. Sometimes without realizing it, the comfort of the improvised office can significantly influence the quality of our work.
It is recommended that you position the monitor at a 90 ° angle to the window to avoid light reflection, while protecting your eyes. When you work from home, it is very easy to be distracted. Thus, it is important to minimize these distractions as much as possible. This means that everything that does not belong to your home office must disappear.
Boundary between personal and professional life is being diluted
One of the biggest disadvantages is that the line between work and private life is slowly disappearing. And people are starting to feel this change over time. First, a large number of employees working from home are isolated in their homes with family members (including children in the context of online schools) who would have been otherwise at work or in school, as per the case.
Thus, keeping our focus becomes a problem when family situations arise at every step. This will significantly influence our work’s quality. Children need attention, help with various things, especially if they are small. Also, the preparation of daily meals becomes a serious problem for some of us. We have to spend significant time cooking them, and sourcing ingredients also becomes a serious problem.
In addition, social interaction decreases, and over time people no longer feel that they belong to a group.
Does our productivity increase?
Some companies are happy when it comes to working from home, because most employees seem to benefit from increased productivity.
Travel for work purposes is significantly reduced. Moreover, online meetings are becoming a norm and are also beginning to show their effectiveness, as they significantly save us time. Thus, physical meetings for business purposes may never return, and video conferencing will become the normal.
Experts say that our life at work will change forever, and working in open spaces may just become history. It is obvious that, at least for the next period, things need to change.
If you want to prevent personal problems and other things that can distract you from your daily tasks in influencing your work from home, here are some useful ideas:
So, the main advantage of working from home may be flexibility, if you find the right way to get it. You can adjust your work schedule according to own needs, responsibilities and personal circumstances, and such personalization can increase the satisfaction felt with the daily office tasks.
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