Remote work is a specific form of work because it allows us to serve our services virtually from any place that is not the office itself. For sure there are branches and services that won’t be able for this kind of work and require physical presence from the employee. I am sure no one expects a remote firefighter anytime soon ;).
In case of IT however, most of the activities are being done with the use of computers and laptops. Projects are stored in repositories, people are contacting mostly via applications or chats – direct work with the client is on the second plan. In current harsh times (article was written during the coronavirus pandemy) in the context of dealing with the virus remote work seems to be a really valuable tool. It is worth saying a bit more about how to work and communicate more effectively from home.
First of all we should remember the fact, that despite staying at home, our time during working hours must be directed towards work related activities. We are professionals. It is important to separate the things we can easily do after work.
Finding a good place for remote work may be tricky, particularly when there are other family members running around making noise. We should however try to generate some space that would allow for a relative peace and order. The possibility of concentrating is really important and valuable in IT.
The next helpful step that would aid our remote work is dressing up in working clothes. Literally. Working from home seems more loose because we’re at home and we can easily cover ourselves in blankets 😉 However, many psychologists that study remote work are simply stating that dressing up in proper working clothes makes us treat our duties more seriously. So grab a proper shirt and Let’s do IT!
As it was stated before, the communication during remote work is mainly a virtual one. It mostly consists of a pair of headphones or speakers and a microphone. We should really take care of clean communication. This means making sure that our microphone and headset is connected and ready to use. There are many cases when the microphone is making some odd white noises or the speakers „collecting” the sound making echo effects. Respect your interlocutors and try to mitigate those problems. It is also worth having a camera and thankfully laptops are already equipped with one. Before we join an online conversation we should take a quick look into settings. Most of the time the input and output settings of the application we’re connecting to are correct however there are cases when we should fix something. Test before the meeting to reduce problems during one.
Those are some simple tips on remote work and communication. For sure most of you have your own ways of working however we should all remember about the basics. Most importantly we should all remember that working and communicating from home is as important as working from the office.