These are tough times. While the roads have become empty, behind the closed doors of apartments and suburban homes, businesses are trying to figure out how to stay operational in a virtual world. Working from home is not a privilege anymore, it’s a necessity. Understanding that many of the employees face challenges with productivity and time management while working from home, here are a few “CEO mantras to Work from Home productively”.
Ms. Roma Priya, Founder of Burgeon Law
“Getting organized and being mindful of creating boundaries between work and personal life is the key to working from home efficiently. One needs to identify when to work and where to work without getting pulled into domestic chores or personal matters. Start your day early and stick to your regular working schedules every day. Laying out clear guidelines for employees and scheduling all deliverables will help employees meet deadlines and check the maximum items of his / her task list. Another important factor is to schedule your breaks as you would if you were working within the office premises and not take leeway and stretch these breaks. One can also utilize the time spent on ordinary days commuting to and fro from work in favor of family time and self-care.”
About Burgeon Law: Burgeon Law is a new-age boutique law firm that provides a one-stop legal shop to emerging companies, incubators, accelerators, angel investors, family offices and venture capital/ private equity funds
Neha Bagaria, Founder & CEO, Jobsforher
“Many companies are now encouraging further ‘social distancing’ by announcing mandatory work-from-home and sending their employees home to work remotely. This is the best option for organizations where a few employees have traveled or are in contact with those who have traveled. Companies are also concerned about the health and safety of their employees whose exposure increases when commuting to work and meeting other colleagues. Gather a cross-functional team together that includes business-line leaders, IT, HR, communications and facilities to plan for different scenarios and optimize execution to ensure that there is minimal impact on the business when everyone connects remotely. Ensure your employees have the required infrastructure at home to be able to work remotely. Use sharing tools such as G Suite (Drive, Sheets, Docs, Slides) to collaborate live on documents when working in teams, the absence of face-to-face communication can be frustrating. So last but not the lease – trust your teams while providing them guard rails with the flexibility to deliver with clearly defined targets.”
About JobsForHer: JobsForHer is an online portal that enables women to accelerate their careers by connecting them to jobs.
Narayan Mahadevan, Founder, BridgeLabz
“With the coronavirus outbreak declared a pandemic by the World Health Organisation (WHO), many companies around the world and in India are making contingency plans in preparation for the spread of COVID-19 and “remote working” is a big part of those plans. The government has advised against large social gatherings and asked people to advocate social distancing as the coronavirus spreads in India, hence making more and more companies opting for ‘remote working’ or ‘work for home’ for a few weeks.
The general notion about working from home is looked upon as a less productive approach towards work as compared to regular working environment. However, if you give a defined start to the day, and plan all the task along with time sheet, then achieving targets are more easier. Taking short breaks, while staying connected to your colleagues always helps in remote working culture. It’s important to set reasonable daily goals and not to multitask to get the maximum output. Also, to map the progress, one should create and update a to-do list regularly. Lastly, as the popular quote by Zig Zigler implies “A goal properly set is halfway reached”, set your goals for next day the night before.”
About BridgeLabz: BridgeLabz is an AWS recognized Incubator focused on solving the tech employability challenge. It bridges the talent gap and providing skilled engineers to startups and enterprise.
Sandip Chhettri, Chief Operating Officer, TradeIndia
“The key drivers affecting change in the way we work are technology and the millennial workforce. Technology-on-the-go allows the team to complete tasks and attend meetings from anywhere in the world. We have developed proper reporting and tracking software to make sure our employees remain focused on their work. We have also developed the Sales Force Automation App to monitor the activity of our SalesForce, which helps them to work remotely. Working from home, not only benefits employees by eliminating their daily commutes, but it also increases productivity and leads to healthier lifestyles. It’s a win-win situation that employees relish for its flexibility”.
About TradeIndia: TradeIndia is India’s largest online B2B marketplace
Shalini Sharma, CEO and Founder, MUMYU
“I have successfully led two different ventures while working from home and taking care of my kids from past 8 years. At MUMYU we are backed by a team of 450 “work from home” women employees, and 4 mainline employees, and all are remotely placed. A work from home setup can be exceptionally successful, if well executed. As a work from home employee, the key is “DISCIPLINE”. A proper workstation and get-dressed-to-work kind of setup does the magic. As a Work from home organisation, “COMMUNICATION” is the key. Proper flow of information, aggressive approach to connectivity and regular follow up makes it successful. If well executed and taken seriously, the actual work hours in a work from home set up can actually turn out to be better than office set up because of the home environment and support system. Work from home set up turns out to be a failure only due to the habit breaking barrier. Once we unlearn the office formal set up, the work from home becomes a cake walk. In my experience, it takes almost 40 days to get into the habit of work from home but it only takes 5-7 days to accustom and start falling in routine of it. If you can bear this transition time, you will get through the rest of it.”
About MUMYU: MUMYU is the first ergonomic start up of Himachal, embarked on a journey to become the exclusive maternity brand of India.
Aarti Gill, Co-founder of OZiva
“Work from home is usually not a very popular choice & implementing at scale can be a challenging task for many organizations. However, while we are at it given the need of the hour, implementing and following a couple of work etiquette remotely can help in efficient working. Most important and effective way to focus on work and be productive at home is treat it like your everyday routine and freshen up and dress and sit for work. You can also declutter and organise your space and turn it into a workstation. Be in touch with your colleagues online.”
About Oziva: A clean plant based nutrition brand
Bharath Sastry, CEO of Vistaprint India
“I was fortunate to work from home for 1.5 years earlier in my career when I had my own startup. Sharing some learnings –
Be Prepared – have the proper infrastructure for yourself and team, namely laptops, wifi, video/ audio, a suitable chair and table at home.
Office-like – Work during the day exactly as you would do otherwise at office. Start off at the same time, go through your meetings & actions and end the day as you would do at the office.
Trust (that your team is also working), and trust me they will be”
About Vistaprint: Vistaprint is an online personalised printing platform for individuals and small businesses.