So many businesses are now encouraging or even mandating employees to begin working from home amid the heath concerns of Coronavirus. Millions have already changed their daily routines, in turn changing the way many of us work today.
Not everyone has been made accustomed to working from home, and getting work done can be an adjustment. The good news about working from home is the commute time has gone down. Many are spending more time with family and maybe getting a few things done around the home. Some challenges, including loneliness, staying connected, and heightened levels of distraction, can significantly affect your productivity, so we are here to help!
Regardless if you are working from a spare bedroom or the lobby of your building, we have compiled some tips to help you set up and limit distractions while maintaining confidentiality and professionalism.
Time to Discuss Your Setup
Business laptops will typically house a built-in camera and microphone. It makes a big difference in the experience for you and others in the meeting when using a dedicated webcam or cellphone audio. To be your best self on camera, we recommend using a set of headphones regardless of connection type. Even a pair of wired mic-enabled headphones can go a long way. Great lighting is crucial, so try and have your face be lit by a nearby window or webcam light.
Do Not Forget About Your Connection
Home internet has historically never been as robust as your business network. This means if family or roommates are sharing the connection for streaming, you might experience bandwidth issues.
Start meeting and collaborating – Here are some of our go-to modifications to make your meetings more productive:
- Virtual Backgrounds to Hide the Clutter
Upload a nice background or video with minimal motion. This will help you hide background clutter and other visual distractions.
- Having a Bad Hair Day?
Many meetings or collaborative tools that provide video chatting have settings to automatically touch up your appearance. Subtle smoothing of the skin on your face will breathe life into your tired eyes. These tools are built to solve the problems all workers encounter in their day-to-day. - Temporarily Mute or Unmute
When working from home, many like to stay on mute in large meetings, just in case a dog barks or someone rings a doorbell. In many meeting tools today, temporarily muting yourself can be done by holding the space bar to make a quick comment. This makes managing your audio much easier. - Screen/Window Sharing
Most meeting apps will provide the ability to share your screen and collaborate. Look for platforms that support multiple people sharing; it supercharges a meeting’s collaboration. For us, our engineers utilize screen-sharing from multiple individuals for better planning and solution identification. - Pair With Your calendar
It might feel like a painful endeavor to try and sync your calendar to your collaborative apps or meeting tools. If you can brave the journey, this will turn your workflow around. Not only will you have another entry point into a meeting while on the go, but you also receive notifications with ease. - Leverage In-Meeting Chat to Share Files & Resources
Struggling to provide access to or find a document for screen sharing, forcing everyone to wait while you draft up a subject line and attach the most recent version of the document? Cut this corner. Leverage the in-meeting chat to provide links to resources, or in many cases, the updated document. This creates a quick comment and quiet notification to all parties, preventing a disruption in ongoing conversations. - Securing Your Meeting Experience
Your office network might be dialed in with security preferences, but having employees working remotely might need some help. Look to lock meeting with passwords for joining. Restrict meeting attendees to authenticate with the domain to prevent hackers or spoofed users. More so, limit the content that can be shared on screen, and by who; chances are everyone does not need access to the financials at a business.
Continue Working from ANYWHERE
Everyone on your team is most likely in the same boat as you, from dogs barking, doorbells ringing during a call or meeting is not the end of the world. Do your best to continue to prepare and better your workspace. Adjust with ease by incorporating new routines or freshen up your work surroundings.
COVID-19 or Working during these times have your business struggling? Contact Clare Computer Solutions to discuss the solutions best suited for your business. In many cases, businesses can already have some of these tools in place; it is simply just refreshing your knowledge of them!
