With the current situation caused by the coronavirus and the advice to stay home, most of us find ourselves working remotely. Whether we might be fond of it or not, we can all agree on that it’s challenging to effectively manage time while working from home.
If your employees are not used to working long hours remotely, or it is their first time doing so, they may come across some hurdles. Knowing how to manage time effectively, which can already be an uphill struggle at the office, might be even harder when working from home. So, it is important that you teach your employees how to do this.
With their personal space invaded by work, they find it hard to manage their time effectively and they end up not having time for themselves.
Here you will learn the problems that your employees may encounter while working remotely, and some tips to help them nail their work-from-home game in the long run.
Time management problems encountered while working from home
Knowing how to divide work-time from personal-time is crucial when working remotely. Your employees may find themselves overloaded as a result of the current situation. They may either work too much or decrease the amount of work that gets done.
Normally, your employees would have to commute to get to the office – and that distance between the office and home helps them disconnect their personal life from their careers. From home, it is different. They can just roll out of bed and start working. The line between work and home blurs, and they sometimes end up working longer hours.
Also, sharing a working space with flatmates, family, or other people can be challenging. Some employees might struggle with finding a suitable space to work in. Not everyone has a home office they can use; they may have to share a space, making it harder to concentrate and get work done.
It is common for employees to overload themselves with work. They try to do too much in too little time. This can create productivity consequences . If they are too stressed and don’t disconnect that often from their work, it can lead to mental stress issues and lack of rest.
5 tips that will make working from home more effective
The importance of time management when working from home should be something you teach employees so they can learn how to divide their time and try balancing work and personal life.
This will not only increase productivity but also decrease the possibility of mental wellness problems. Encourage them to feel positive.
Here are some time management tips that you can use to encourage your employees who are working remotely. Help them organize and manage their time and help them be more efficient!
1. Be aware of the number of meetings they have
With the lack of human interaction and water-cooler conversations that happen at the office, your employees may feel that there has been an increase in the number of meetings.
They should be aware of the fragmented time between those meetings; most people aren’t productive during small periods of time, anyway. They may feel that they have had a busy day but with no positive results.
Employees should try to reduce the fragmented time and create a schedule that helps their productiveness.
2.Make time for your employees’ wellbeing
It is known that people work better when they are happy. It is important that they include exercise, get nutrition, and rest regularly .
This will have a significant impact on their emotional state. As a result, they will feel more energetic and overall be in a better mood to get work done.
3. Prioritize
Workers are not machines – they can’t do it all at the same time. They must know how to prioritize the most important tasks of the day so they can focus and complete them without any distractions.
Leaving priority tasks for high-energy moments and smaller and easier tasks for low-energy moments is crucial.
4. Help with stress and anxiety management
Make sure employees aren’t under a lot of stress or anxiety and help them manage it. This year has been hard on everyone. The uncertainty we feel and the loss of control of our lives has increased the number of cases of stress and anxiety in workers.
A remedy could be to add mindfulness to help them deal with uncertainty – and most importantly, communicate. Make them feel like they have others to rely on.
5. Give your employees flexible schedules
In an office, employees have a timetable that they have to follow, and they are urged to work only during those hours. Working from home is different. Employees may find themselves being more productive at different times.
What is important here is your employees can feasibly achieve all the important tasks of the day and meet business requirements. Flexible schedules should be an option.
