Help Your Employees Manage Time When Working From Home

The trend of remote working is likely to stay, even if only in small doses. However, organizations need to understand that it is not a one-way bridge. In order to make sure that your employees are set up for success, there are certain things that you can do as a team leader.

Below, we have included some tips to support your employees that are working from home.

1. Keep Everyone Informed

Despite meticulous planning, your employees who are working from home might not always be able to adhere to a strict schedule. For instance, a domestic emergency might arise, and they might have to attend to it. Or they might not have a work zone that might not be as optimized as the office space.

Perhaps, the only way to deal with this is to keep the communication lines open. By communicating with your team consistently, you can make sure that they are getting what they need. This may mean providing extra information and resources, such as a professional paper writing service like WritePaper, or an online course that will help them upgrade their skills.

2. Create a Work Schedule

One way to help your team manage time is to create goals. These can serve as guideposts for a day’s work, especially when your domestic and work-life are overlapping. Moreover, completing clear objectives can also help your employee give a sense of accomplishment.

As such, be sure that each of your employees is given clear goals on what they are working on. It will make remote jobs more manageable as well as productive. And thankfully, there are plenty of apps that will help you organize this and keep track of everything.

3. Integrate Productivity Tools

It is also your responsibility, as an employer, to make sure that your employees are getting access to the best tools possible to keep up their work. With the surge in remote working, you will have no trouble finding new and advanced project management software that is affordable.

However, before you make such a change, you should also make sure that your employees are on board with this shift. Some of them might want to stick to old tools, and as such, you will want to provide them with recommendations for the new productivity apps. This can make the onboarding process easier for the entire team.

4. Avoid Procrastination

Well, this is certainly easier said than done. After all, if we all could manage our life without procrastinating, then things would be easier. However, the ugly truth is that when you are a working student, you cannot afford to leave things for the last minute – they will simply pile up.

One way to approach this is to break down your assignments or courses into steps or goals. This means that you can spread them apart without making the sessions overwhelming. For instance, let’s suppose that you have a paper due.

You can assign two hours for a paper on the last day or break it down into four half-hour sessions over two days. This way, every time you attend the task, you will be refreshed and will not find it too tiring.

5. Leave Room for the Unexpected

Although you have planned the day to the minute, it is always possible that something can turn out in an unexpected manner. This is why you should always leave a buffer in between by allocating extra time between the tasks assigned to your employees.

This is crucial for those in managerial positions who are in charge of handing over a project. Even if your employees miss a day or fail to complete a task, the team leaders will have to take responsibility. Keeping buffers in between will help you avoid the stress if things don’t go according to your plan.

6. Try to Offer Flexibility

When your staff is doing their job, there might not be a clear line between the time dedicated to work and relax. This can make things challenging for everyone. However, as an employer, what you can do is not be strict about office hours.

For instance, while you can make it a point for your team members to be present for meetings and make deadlines, you can let them handle how they manage the rest of the time. This will provide your employees with a lot more flexibility with their days and even lead to better work performance, as they are in control of their schedule.

7. Offer Ways to Manage Stress

Undeniably, the shift to remote working comes with its own stress. While you cannot personally ensure that all your employees are doing well physically and mentally, there are other ways for you to be helpful.

For instance, you can provide subscriptions to apps that offer stress management, such as meditation, exercise, or even journaling. You can also take steps to let your employees know that you are available to listen.

Each employee might have their own individual triggers. So, to cope with the stress, you can also sponsor consultations with therapists if needed. In addition, make sure that your employees get help to schedule doctor’s appointments, vaccine shots, and other aspects that might contribute to the stress.

8. Incorporate Virtual Activities

Coming to work every day is not only about having a dedicated workspace. But remote work takes away the aspect of social interaction, which can harm many people. As such, be sure to organize virtual activities and events so that everyone working from home can benefit.

This will help strengthen the team bond and offer an outlet for your employees to spend time outside work.

9. Avoid Micromanaging

People who are working remotely might not respond well to micromanaging. The chances are that they might be hoping to have a more independent schedule and might not appreciate re-engagement from your end. Moreover, you might also be undermining their productivity.

Instead, you can schedule 1-on-1 meetings to ensure that both parties are informed of everything.

10. Reward Your Employees

One notable consequence of remote work is that there might be very limited direct interaction between your clients and individual employees. And as such, many of your team members might be feeling unappreciated for their hard work.

This can be changed by offering recognition tools such as social media promotions or employee of the month awards that will serve as encouragement. As a team leader, you can also encourage your clients to leave positive feedback directly to an employee or pass it on to them so that they feel appraised by both the team as well as a customer.

The Bottom Line

Letting your employees work home can play out to be an advantageous move for both organizations as well as your team. However, that is not to say that there won’t be any challenges.

Try to follow the tips we mentioned above to ensure that you offer your employees an optimized work environment, no matter where they do the job. On top of this list, try to incorporate adequate communication and let your remote workers know that they are appreciated by their teammates, clients, and employers.