This is material produced by Lumiun Tecnologia to share some of our practical and research experiences on the current scenario of working from home and also on the numerous technology and behavioral tools that can facilitate the transition from in-person to remote work, in many companies in Brazil.
Benefits, challenges and solutions are the main objectives of this material, in order to help employees, managers and entrepreneurs who already work or intend to implement remote work for part or all of their team.
It is important to keep in mind that this work model is establishing itself as a new standard and is already widely used outside Brazil. Here, it is still in the construction and adaptation phase, but we hope that in some way we can help as many people as possible with this material.
summary
- Reasons to adopt Home Office
- Home Office Challenges
- Legal issues
- How to adapt my company?
- Tools and technologies that can help
- Home Office Equipment Tips
- Conclusion
Reasons to adopt Home Office
The remote work model will be increasingly present in the daily lives of companies. Cities changed their processes, professional activities had numerous adjustments and the use of technology changed a lot over this period. The biggest fear of professionals in relation to working from home is certainly the transition of this process and adaptation. According to research by ISE Business School, on the ability to balance home and work, it brought 3 major results:
The future of work is now: more than 80% of national companies have adopted teleworking.
For more than 80% of respondents, the main difficulties were overcome.
For almost 90% of executives, the moment helped to reinforce personal values and family ties.
“Changes that would occur in five or ten years are already happening,” said Cesar Bullara, director and professor of the people management department at ISE.
There are several good reasons to adopt this work model, below we list the most relevant ones.
Economy
Following the market trend of creating rotating offices, imagine that your company has 100 employees working in one office, using all the resources necessary for full work. Well, now imagine that 75 of them start working remotely twice a week. This means that you could save at least 30% on space rental (if applicable), energy, furniture, etc.
Productivity
On average, people who work remotely usually produce more, when, of course, they have a favorable and controlled environment (we'll talk more about this) to carry out their work in a concrete way.
Hiring and Retention
Managing to hire talent remotely is an easier task than in the normal work model. If the professional you want to hire to take off your company's sales, for example, lives in another state or a city very far from your company, they may accept your offer at this time. Furthermore, the probability of losing this employee is greatly reduced by the favorable scenario for him.
Time
People who work from home are not late, suffer less from stress and pollution in big cities, are less tired or sick, due to eliminating the need to travel to work and all the processes involving this task, which used to be a daily task and can now be done daily. no longer exist. Seeing this, your company can gain more in productivity, use of time and reduce unforeseen events and delays.
Home Office Challenges
The first step is to change your perception of “normal” work. There are several surveys from large companies and health professionals identifying that the pandemic will not have an “end”. The entire population must take care and maintain containment systems for a long time to come, and this means that remote work will also remain alive for a long time.
Below, we list some of the main challenges for companies when implementing home office work.
Equipment and Changes
Making the transition to remote work is a big change and to do so, you need to invest in solutions, services and products. We can say that it is not a high investment compared to any other corporate change, but it exists, of course. The important thing is that the implementation occurs quickly, structured and safe, so the return will be just as quick.
Checking companies and partners that have joined this modality, we realize that the main investment locations for this change are:
Mobile equipment for employees such as cell phones and notebooks
Stationery and individual daily use material, where they were previously used together
Tables, chairs and peripherals for computers and computerized systems
There are some extreme cases where there is a need to install high-speed internet, or improve equipment related to it, such as routers, for example.
However, there are also cases where there is no need to purchase new equipment, as the employee has one, or the company's equipment can be transported for home use by the employee.
Employee focus and control
It is natural in the first few days to be unsure about the real effectiveness of employees working from home. Managing work activities and schedules is a necessary and worrying task, after all, “being at home” can seem tempting to disengaged employees.
Adapting to the new system
Every change requires learning. Mainly process ones, where work followed a long-term flow. Therefore, in the first few days it is normal to generate a small drop in performance and productivity, however, if the change project is well structured and concise, this learning curve becomes small and in the first month it can generate great results.
Habits and distractions
People tend to maintain habits and create new ones in some scenarios. Do not think that in your homes such habits will be lost, or that new ones will not be created. It is important that so that there are no distractions arising from such habits, that managers or those responsible invest in daily communication and training to raise people's awareness and make the process more transparent, after all, even at home, it is still work.
Technology
In the age of knowledge, without communication, remote work becomes practically impossible. Keep in mind that you need to have resources that enable these two points in a safe and stable way. To make this process much easier, we have separated some of the main technological and knowledge solutions divided into topics, which you can see below.
Legal issues
In order to protect workers' rights, companies must use as a legal basis what is provided for in the Consolidation of Labor Laws (CLT). In its articles 2 and 8, respectively, the law determines that the business risk belongs to the employer and that any decision must be taken respecting public interests to the detriment of class or private interests. Furthermore, in the absence of sufficient legal provisions, the authorities make the decisions.
This means that it is your responsibility, as a company, to ensure the survival of the business even in socially or economically unfavorable circumstances.
The current legal bases
The scenario changed in 2017 with the entry into force of the Labor Reform, through Law 13,467 , which modified and added situations that were not regulated by the CLT. Now, there is a chapter especially focused on the provision of services under remote work, based on article 75-A of the Consolidation.
In February 2020, the federal government sanctioned Law 13,979 , which provides for measures to combat the global coronavirus outbreak — declared a pandemic only on March 11. The regulation addresses the need for isolation, quarantine and determination of compulsory examinations, in which cases the absence of the employee must be considered a justified absence.
The concept of teleworking
When it comes to remote work and legislation, Labor Reform calls working from home teleworking. This modality includes services provided outside the company's premises, which use technological tools and whose nature is not characterized as external work.
How to adapt my company?
The organization must transform the activity: from in-person to teleworking. To achieve this, the legislation basically determines that there must be an addendum to the employment contract.
Additional employment contract
The addendum to the employee's employment contract must be drawn up in writing, indicate the change from in-person to teleworking and describe the characteristics and rules of the modality. Among other issues, it must be clarified how the work will work, as well as whether it will be quantified by the minimum number of tasks delivered per day or whether it will be subject to working hours control, for example.
We provide a Document Model for the Addendum to the Employment Contract for Teleworking Regime – Home Office .
Journey control
In principle, it is understood that, when teleworking, the employee can work at any time he deems appropriate, as long as he produces and delivers the tasks determined in the contract. In this case, he would also not be entitled to a lunch break or break between shifts, night shift pay (if he works during the early hours of the morning) or overtime.
On the other hand, with new technologies, there is already an understanding that it is fully possible to control the journey even from a distance, such as a point via cell phone, registration in the company's internal system and the webcam itself. Hence the importance of thoroughly establishing the rules, as the legislation deals with the matter in a generic way.
Source: Great Place to Work
Tools and technologies that can help
Technology does not wait for companies to get used to it. Those who adopt first will be pioneers and those who leave aside will increasingly lose market share, little by little.
To facilitate the transition process from in-person work to working from home, there are several tools that technology can help with, so we have listed the most common and indispensable ones below.
Fast, drop-free internet
It will be inevitable to use the internet when working from home. Therefore, hiring fast and fluid internet, without drops, is extremely necessary for full remote work.
Imagine, in the middle of a meeting with an important client, or a hiring negotiation, there is an internet outage, or partial loss of audio in the video conference? Somewhat undesirable and harmful to business, right?
If employees need to download or send files daily, use programs that require good speed, it is recommended to use internet with fiber optic technology, which makes the connection more stable.
To improve connection speed, we have listed some tips in an article on our blog, which you can access whenever you want.
Data security and equipment health
People, unlike software, are not programmable and need constant training to avoid compromising the entire system. It is normal to see employees suffering phishing attacks and virus infections on company computers, causing slowdowns in the company's equipment and network.
When the scenario is remote, security flaws intensify, as in remote access, the connection made in an unprotected manner is an easy target for hackers. Therefore, maintaining security systems and secure remote connections is essential to avoid loss of data and revenue resulting from attacks.
We have listed below some of the best solutions for maintaining company data security through antivirus and antimalware for personal computers, according to AV Test :
🛡 – Kaspersky Internet Security
🛡 – Turns Antivirus Pro
🛡 – Bitdefender Internet Security
🛡 – Avast Free Antivirus
🛡 – McAfee Total Protection
VPN for businesses
Most likely there are files and tools that can only be stored and run on the company's internal network. For employees working from home to access this data in a secure and fully controlled way, a tool that can be considered ideal for this task is the Business VPN. We talk more about the topic in an article on our blog, there you will see more detailed information about the tool.
In short, it is a network technology that uses the internet to connect a group of computers and maintain the security of data that travels between them.
In a common scenario, when you connect to the internet and browse websites, download materials and send documents by email, your device is identified through the IP number, and much of your data (excluding the most sensitive) they travel openly and can be intercepted by providers or malicious software. With a private network, data is encrypted, the user is protected and cannot be easily identified.
This technology is used by people who mainly want to ensure browsing privacy and access restricted content in the country. However, companies around the world are discovering how to take advantage of VPN to increase the security of their data and remote work, where many of them access the remote desktop of a computer located on the company's internal network, including, we talk about exactly about this in an article on our blog.
Below, see some VPN solutions for companies:
🏠 – NordVPN
🏠 – ExpressVPN
🏠 – Perimeter 81
🏠 – Lumiun Business VPN
You can see the characteristics of each solution by accessing our IT Guide for Small and Medium Businesses .
Video conference
Video conferencing when working remotely is essential to “shorten” the distance between the employee and the company as a whole.
For complex tasks and processes, just reading can confuse the employee and in the worst case scenario, the task is performed incorrectly due to lack of understanding.
Therefore, it is important to hold alignment meetings via videoconference.
To help professionals, we've listed the best video conferencing tools:
🎥 – Cisco Webex
🎥 – Google Meet
🎥 – GoToMeeting
🎥 – Join.me
🎥 – Microsoft Teams
🎥 – Skype
🎥 – Zoom Meetings
You can see more information about each tool in our IT Guide for Small and Medium Businesses .
Tasks and processes
Organize your day, take care of personal obligations, know exactly what needs to be done at work.
Maintaining focus is one of the most challenging attitudes for home officers, taking into account the work environment full of temptations and distractions.
To the relief of managers, there are several tools available on the market, some free of charge, to manage employee activities and processes:
🎯 – Trello
🎯 – ProofHub
🎯 – Quire
🎯 – Asana
🎯 – Microsoft To Do
🎯 – Basecamp
🎯 – Monday.com
🎯 – Runrun.it
🎯 – Pipefy
If you want to know more information about each solution, visit our IT Guide for Small and Medium Businesses .
Avoid distractions on the internet
There are solutions on the market that offer complementary Internet Access Control features. This tool optimizes data security through fully customizable access barriers.
Controlling internet access in companies is a solution that has become common, especially for employees working from home, where controlling tasks is somewhat more complicated to carry out.
Below, we list good options for Internet Access Control solutions:
🔔 – DNS Filter
🔔 – Lumiun Enterprise
🔔 – NextDNS
🔔 – Cisco Umbrella
Home office equipment tips
To be more efficient when working remotely, you need to be prepared.
On the one hand, the company must know how to manage and organize the team's work. On the other hand, employees must have a structure to ensure that activities are carried out with quality, without compromising productivity or communication with customers, colleagues and superiors.
Below, we list some essential equipment and objects for efficient home office work.
Computer
Indispensable item, present in 10 out of 10 home offices. It can be a desktop computer or notebook, but give preference to equipment with good storage capacity, a fast processor, sound and video card. The equipment must have the necessary specifications so that the professional can carry out all their tasks fluidly and without inconvenience caused by lack of performance, for example.
Comfortable chair
To face long hours of work, a comfortable chair is essential to alleviate possible stress and maintain the employee's ergonomic posture. Value comfort and ergonomics rather than design when purchasing.
Good lighting
To ensure productive work that does not harm your health, the tip is to opt for well-lit environments. Natural light, from a window for example, is a great choice, as natural light hits the workplace directly, if it is close to the window. For those who don't have natural light, lamps can be a good alternative, lighting up and making the environment more cozy.
Organizers
Leaving the environment messy can lead to lack of control. Serious mistakes due to lack of organization are common in messy environments. To do this, invest in organizers, they will make life easier for home office professionals, whether to store papers, pens or files.
Router
Having a good internet signal is crucial to maintaining productivity when working remotely. Therefore, it is worth investing in a good router. Look for more current models, compatible with new technologies. This will allow everyone to work in rooms far from the equipment and use their smartphone or other device to carry out other work that uses the internet, without affecting internet speed or signal.
UPS
The device protects and keeps electronic devices working in cases of power outages or fluctuations. This way, no one runs the risk of having damaged files or equipment and also having to re-execute tasks that were lost.
Source: Intelbras Blog
Conclusion
With some years of market experience, developing tools and materials to optimize productivity and improve data security systems for companies of the most different segments and sizes, we at Lumiun believe that remote work can be an exponential factor in improving health and company revenue, if used in an organized and clear way, using good tools like those mentioned above.
Working from home is a change that involves several areas and generates a certain amount of insecurity, like any major change.
If you intend to implement remote work, or have already implemented it but are having difficulties, we hope this material has helped in some way.
It is important to keep in mind that this work model is establishing itself as a new standard and is already widely used outside Brazil.
Here, it is still in the construction and adaptation phase, but we hope that in some way we can help as many people as possible with this material.