Recently, due to the Coronavirus “Outbreak,” we are in a kind of lockdown. Our government encourages us to stay home if that is possible. Moreover, even a lot of people started to work from home. “Work from home” is not a new thing for me. I am a programmer. In our industry in Brisbane, “Work from home” is a common practice. Some companies offer an option to the employee, and some companies went a bit further, most of the staff are working from home. In our industry, “Work from home” is benefits both parties. For employers, the company can save rent. If some of the staff will work from home some days every week, then the company won’t arrange dedicated workstations for their team. They can switch to use hot desks. Then they can reduce the office space. I know some companies went much further, they went utterly virtual, every staff work from home most of the days. They may hire some co-working spaces if they have some meetings or some staff required to work together for some days. For employees, we can have the time traveling from home to ey may hire some co-working spaces, if they have some meeting or some staff required to work together some days. For employees, we can have time traveling from home to office.
Moreover, if you have any young kids, that is much better to care for them. For myself, due to these mutual benefits and some family reasons, I am working from home for a year and a half. Thus, I believe I had some experiences to share.
Firstly, if you are living in a city which is a low-density city, similar to Brisbane, I highly recommend having a room as your home office. Working from home is very important to separate the distractions from home. Even we work from home, and we still need to highly concentrated on our work!
Secondly, that is the working hours. Working from home does not mean flexible working hours. That is too two different things although a lot of companies offers both options for the employee. If you have fixed working hours, even you are working from home, and we need to work during our standard working hours. I hope other family members can understand this point.
Moreover, I particularly like a morning quick stand up meeting. This kind of meeting will be carry out every morning at the first task at the day, in the work from home environment, we will go that via video calls. During the meeting, we will give a brief report about what we have done the day before and what we are going to today, also, any help required. This kind of meeting will have the whole team understand the work progress for each member, even we are in various locations. Also, I encourage each team member will say a thing not related to work, such as an exciting thing that happened in your family the day before. This will help to maintain the bonding between your team. Besides our routine communications, when any problems occur, please do not hesitate to ask help from other teammates, the organization is decentralized, you still are in the team.
Lastly, that is a unique problem in Australia. Working from home required a stable internet from home to our office network, and we need to do video calls that required a good internet connection. However, our NBN is not doing an excellent job in some areas. Thus, you need to check your internet service provider, whether they can provide enough speed for you. If not, you need to buy a better speed package or switch to a new provider. Also, you need to make your internet provider can provide supports if your Internet got some problems. If not, you also need to consider switching to a new provider. The Internet is an essential tool for working from home.
I wish these tips can help you to work from home
