Small and medium-sized Brazilian companies are going through tense times with the second wave of Covid-19. What seemed like a return to the “normal” state of work caught most managers and businesspeople by surprise.
Many are worried about financial hardship due to the outages, others live in fear of having to close permanently. In parallel to all this, offices that do not need their doors open to remain operational are once again adopting the much-acclaimed home office, seen as the “ new normal ”.
Collectively, remote work is still a challenge, after all, managing remotely and maintaining the same productivity is not simple, but necessary. That's why adopting priorities and putting some strategies into practice can make a difference and perhaps free the company from many difficulties.
Below, we'll look at 5 home office security and productivity hacks for small and medium-sized businesses to better adapt to the hostile environment in which they find themselves.
1. Create an ergonomic workspace
Organizing the work environment correctly is as important as having the appropriate tools. When space is a problem and the employee is unable to carry out their work fluidly, it ends up reducing their productivity and over time this ends up becoming a nuisance.
Correctly positioning your arms, feet and even the height of your computer monitor at eye level can help a lot with muscle tension and pain at the end of the day. The chair also greatly influences the comfort required for work.
See the SESI portal for 10 tips on ergonomics at work , and try to apply them to as many employees as possible working from home, simply optimizing productivity during working hours.
2. KPIs to monitor
Some performance indicators (KPIs), when monitored analytically, can greatly help remote team productivity:
- Self-discipline: an employee's ability to work independently and with less supervision;
- Effective Communication: An employee's ability to communicate effectively and efficiently with teams and customers;
- Learning and adaptation skills: an employee's ability to learn new things efficiently and also to adapt to the new environment and new ways of working;
- Responsibility: employees must learn to take responsibility for their activities, after all, there is less supervision in the home office;
- Collaboration: everyone must be able to work with other teammates, even when distant from each other, adapting forms of communication and processes;
- Availability: Even with flexible work hours, everyone must be available for meetings when needed
See which employees have the adjectives and characteristics mentioned above, and identify which of them need more attention. Improvements in this sense have a positive impact on the productivity of the team as a whole.
3. Make a flexible schedule
This is a challenge for most companies as they believe that business hours are universal.
However, for teams working from home, the idea of a work schedule needs to be thrown out. You must remember that people are working from home, and unlike the office, the home environment can have several obstacles to working at conventional hours:
- Children who are not in school
- Family responsibilities
- Lower performing networks and devices
- Internet and equipment failures
- External factors such as works close to the residence
It's important to consider that your employees may prefer to work from home and still be more productive in what appears to be a comfortable environment. But this improved productivity can come with a price for the company: flexible hours.
Remember that if the work is being done in a timely manner, it shouldn't matter when it is being done.
4. Manage Burnout
Burnout is a problem related to an employee's lack of adaptation to working from home. The reason is the inability to separate work from home. When this happens, employees can start to feel like they are working 24/7. Furthermore, there is usually no (necessary) break for family life.
The key to resolving Burnout problems is open communication with one or more people, seeking to help them during this period.
Some tips for educating your team are:
- Create a routine with well-defined working hours between work time and home time
- Establish a work room, so that this place is just work, outside of it, it is your home
- Make sure your employees are communicating with loved ones outside of work hours
- Measure each employee's stress levels. High levels may indicate the beginning of a Burnout crisis.
- Understand priorities. Know which work is a priority and which can be postponed, so as not to overload the team.
If team members don't work smart, they will burn out quickly. Feeling “at the office” every day is exhausting. To do this, you will need to allow the team to work flexible hours.
5. Use the same office software without installing anything
With the economic crisis, time has become synonymous with revenue. Therefore, wasting time on unnecessary activities is wasting money. Adapting systems, files and software on remote workers' computers is a long and, in some cases, complex task. But, to have the same office software, the same files and use the same systems, there is a solution: use the Business VPN.
With Lumiun's Business VPN, for example, it is possible to remotely access the company's files and internal systems in a secure way, without putting the data transmitted during access at risk, and also increase productivity in the home office.
Furthermore, Windows has a tool called Remote Desktop, which allows a remote employee to quickly access the system from another computer. This tool is being an ally for companies that are looking for remote access for employees working from home. You can learn more about the functionality in the article How to access Remote Desktop securely on our blog.
6. Automate everything you can
Automation can be used to make remote employees more productive, worrying less about details, leaving small tasks to technology.
One of the biggest productivity thieves in business are repetitive, low-priority tasks that don't require a human touch to be executed correctly. Things like filtering emails, updating databases, approving requests for time off or adjusting schedules can be automated to save time.
Some industries can automate tasks to a certain extent, and when full automation is not possible, creating a process to streamline routine tasks can dramatically increase productivity.
7. Focus on tasks by controlling internet access remotely
Since remote work was adopted, managers have been concerned about employee productivity. Directly, companies want to know if their employees are working even when they are away from the office.
Therefore, the demand for internet access management and monitoring systems is increasing, as small and medium-sized companies try to implement supervision and accountability in a remote work environment.
On the other side of the coin, there is the flexibility and engagement factor, where certain “liberations” can improve the employee’s performance when working from home.
However, leaving everything open does not guarantee improvements in productivity, on the contrary, it can hinder the employee, taking time and attention with websites and content outside the scope of work.
Implementing an internet access control system for employees working from home is a relevant action, and should be seen as a valid strategy by managers and IT professionals responsible for creating solutions to improve the productivity of remote workers.
Lumiun's Business VPN can be an ally in this strategy. In addition to enabling employees to remotely connect to the company's local network, it is also possible to block and release websites, applications and categories.
See more about how to monitor internet access when working remotely .
The next step
This year will bring many challenges for small and medium-sized companies, where the strongest and most prepared will find the best ways to overcome these difficulties.
As we saw previously, security and productivity when working from home can make this process much easier, so the next step is to identify the bottlenecks in your company, and try to apply as many of the hacks mentioned as possible.
If you want to see more useful tips and tools for working from home, access the Home Office Guide for Small and Medium-Sized Businesses .
Until later!
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