With the impact of working at home, driven primarily by the Covid-19 pandemic, the impact of remote work has been lost with several virtual meetings without much objectivity and productivity.
In this article, we highlight some real impacts of how working from home affects team collaboration.
Your schedule needs to be firm.
You have to be even more hard with your schedule, especially if you work with high volume activities with strict deadlines. It's necessary to develop and maintain your discipline and know when you need to push to deliver greater levels of results in your work.
#1 Increased Amount of Distractions
At work you don't have access to Netflix, a comfortable bed, an interesting book to read, a dog to play and walk or family members constantly interrupting.
Our main suggestions for avoiding distractions is to keep the space separate to focus on your work and limit the need to look at any of your social media feeds.
#2 Social Isolation
Social isolation is one of the main disadvantages of working at home. The employee is isolated in a bubble without that interacting with their team.
With that isolation, collaboration was impacted by the lack of casual moments among employees such as brainstorming and creative team thinking.
Empathy has become essential to improve those lost moments. Share fun and personal life events with your employees, the organizational climate will be less rigorous as you share life experiences.
One resource for improving creativity is having better visual communication via video calls rather than sticking to audio or messaging and emails only.
#3 Internet Connection Problems
With several people at home using the internet for long periods, remote employees begin to experience problems connecting to an overloaded network.
Consequently, video calls are slower which can impair the efficiency of your work. Check your network to increase the capacity of your internet speed or try to set alternative schedules together with your family member so that it isn’t affected as much.
#4 Communication Noises
Communication noise is any type of noise that interferes with communication, making it difficult to understand. Noises can be external or internal within the information. Stay aware of those noises around and try to remain more objective with clarity on how that noise is affecting your work.
#5 Taking Care of Your Physical and Mental health
Working from home can have a very negative effect on both your physical and mental health.
Exercise, meditate (see it’s benefits on our article here) and eat healthier (see our suggested tips on this article) are crucial to be able to collaborate better. Don't forget about getting some vitamin D (preferably naturally with the sun), which is important for your mood.
Employees are eager to return to the office at least once a week. A return to space means it’s in your mind to have a security and style of work again to increase the quantity and quality of interactions, level of creativity and collaboration.
ICONIC Workspaces offers an intermediate alternative between a home office and working in the office to help in your team collaboration efforts. We have separate environments for individual use or by appointment to encourage your remote employees to have greater productivity and security. Contact our team and book a free tour today.
