Remote Working Organisation: Know-how

In this article you will find a predefined know-how, best practices and guildines for both – employers as well as emoployess:

For employers:

1. Verify if employees have condition to work from home

Ask your employee to take following survey:

[ ] Do you have a separate room for work where other roomates won’t interrupt you?
[ ] Do you have comfortable desk and chair?
[ ] Do you have required equipment:
— [ ] Laptop
— [ ] Extra displays
— [ ] Docking station (if needed)
— [ ] Connection cables
— [ ] Fast and reliable internet connection
— [ ] Accessories (mouse, mousepad etc)
[ ] Does your family or other roommates are informed that they shouldn’t disturb you during work time and minimize distraction?
[ ] Did they accept and confirmed to follow this rule?

2. Supply employees with necessary equipment

Make sure to provide your employees with necessary equipment (laptop, extra screens). Keep in mind:

A hardware is much cheaper than humans’ work!

In our company everyone who starts working remotely can get up to two displays to home, all necessary cables. We are also working on laptops by default. So make sure that employees receives all required hardware:

[ ] Laptop
[ ] Extra displays
[ ] Docking station (if needed)
[ ] Connection cables
[ ] Fast and reliable internet connection
[ ] Accessories (mouse, mousepad etc)
[ ] Camera for video-calls
[ ] Mobile phone

But also software

[ ] Access to all systems (task management, calendars, IMs etc)
[ ] Access to conference software
[ ] VPN (if needed, if you don’t know what is it or do you need it, we described that here)
[ ] Antiviurs
[ ] Company phone book – make sure everyone has contacts to each other
[ ] List of suggested/approved applications
[ ] List of boosting activity apps:
— [ ] Apps to limit distracting website apps ( i.e. TimeRescue)
— [ ] Apps helping focus ( i.e. Pomodoro rule)
— [ ] Time keeping app (i.e. Timetag )

3. Prepare clear working policy

1. Communication
   How employees should communicate? Which app to use?
2. Working hours
   Make it clear when do you expect your people to be online / working. I.e. in our company we allow people to start work between 6-9:00, as a result they can finish somewhere between 14:00 – 17:00 which gives us 5 hours windows (9:00 – 14:00) where everyone is available.
3. Define response time
   Define whether your employees should be available all the time and reply promptly or rather foucs on a work and check IG once an hour
4. Work documentation
   Since you won’t see each other make sure that all work is stored in task management system, otherwise people won’t see what you are working at
5. Define reporting mechanism
   Dedicated chat channel or quick daily conf call within the teams? Whatever it is, make sure to define how and how often people will report progress.

For employees

1. Remote working is not holiday

Remote working is still working! Don’t treat it as a free holiday.

If you cannot or do not want to work remotely, announce it. You can always:
[ ] take a day off
[ ] switch to part-time work model
[ ] take a childcare or a sick leave

Be fair with your employer.

2. Prepare your working area

• Make sure to clearly separate your “working” area from your living are.
• Choose a quiet and distraction-free working space
• Have an internet connection that’s adequate for their job.
• Do not work in pijama
• Do not work in a kitchen or sofa – if you wan’t to eat, take a break and eat
• Dedicate your full attention to your job duties during working hours

3. Define your working hours

Define clearly what are your working hours, where do you plan to have breaks and make

4. And take breaks!

5. Set rules with roommates

Set a clear rules with your roommates. Make sure that they are aware that although you are sitting in a home, you are still working.

Make them also know that sometimes when they want good for you (i.e. prepare you dinner or a tea) they may distract you from a important task and as a result – you will finish your job later than you would normally do.