It is a reality that companies, regardless of their scale, sector or region, had to face changes due to pandemic, such as Japanese company Fujitsu, which announced in July that it was transferring 80,000 employees to a remote work configuration. Thus, signaling a massive change of traditional corporate culture of the company, which, by the way, is one of the largest in Japan.
Working at home during the pandemic brought some great benefits to part of employees and companies in Brazil, such as less displacement, more time with pets and family members, savings of items such as parking and vehicle maintenance, among other factors.
But on the other hand, it also brought some inconveniences to professionals and companies, which we can call 'traps' of remote work.
Next, we listed 5 of the most common inconveniences and problems to adopt this work method and together with them, as you can solve if it is yours.
1 - Home office does not work for everyone
Most major companies, such as Google, Facebook and Twitter, have advocated remote work as the " new normal ." But this "rule" doesn't work for everyone.
The privileged with such a work mode are usually employed in the areas of technology, engineering, finance or administrative services, facilitating the remote work process. But some sectors and functions have not had changes, except, of course, the measures and care to avoid the contagion of the virus. Below are some examples of occupations that have not undergone changes in the pandemic:
- Employees who depend on computers but have limited interaction with the public, such as:
- Business and Finance (Banks)
- Those who depend on computers and public interaction:
- Health Centers and Hospitals
- Those who depend a lot on computers or public interaction
- Construction
- Maintenance
- Production
- Those who do not depend on computers, but mainly on public interaction:
- Food Services (markets)
- Retail
- Goods delivery (motoboys and delivery)
These employees are on the front line in combating the spread of the virus, being exposed as comprehensive as possible.
Giving more attention only to employees able to do home office work is perhaps a big trap, because possibly those unable to perform their duties in their home are the ones that may have the most difficulties and problems to perform their tasks.
How to solve?
Try to balance attention and their efforts between face -to -face and remote employees in order to maintain tasks and needs on both sides as healthy as possible.
An interesting way of minimizing problems with face -to -face workers is precisely to automate processes with remote teams and consequently leave more time to identify possible problems with employees who remain in classroom work.
Give your team enough and remember that everyone is undergoing adaptations and removal of almost all of your usual activities, which can make the workday and the most tiring tasks mentally, requiring greater attention and care from managers and entrepreneurs.
2 - Mental tiredness
Although most home office workers face a lower risk of contracting COVID-19 at work, moving to teleworking also brings their own health risks. And this, in turn, translates into productivity traps.
The mental tiredness of holding out remote meetings is real. Microsoft conducted a study , requesting 13 pairs of co -workers to complete tasks in person and remotely while they were connected to brainwave monitors. As a result, they found that collaborating online is more mentally exhausting than working together in person.
Thus, it is possible to see that social ties and collaborative techniques formed personally are not always transported to a remote environment.
How to solve?
Eliminating meetings may not be the best way to solve this problem, but facilitating processes, and decreasing video conferences is certainly the first step.
In the market today there are many tools to do task control, eliminating the need for excess or long -term meetings, even facilitating the process of controlling the managers themselves.
Organize chronological and importance or urgency each activity of employees, reduces the need to hold meetings and also reduces the time of each meeting, making the employee's work process more automated and productive.
3 - unfavorable work environment
From an employee's point of view, we have to remember that the able to work at home are usually those who do high -level cognitive work, whose tools to do their work are their brains, your computer and the internet. Well, these people may have more difficulty in concentration in non -favorable environments for all the cognitive effort their work requires.
The reasons for loss of concentration and consequently low productivity can be:
- Home office discomfort due to poor quality equipment, or slow devices and problems
- Noise and excess noise, due to many factors such as:
- Children in the house
- Pets
- Neighbors
- Works
- Mobile notifications
- Household chores in parallel with work
- Temptations of rest, food and customs linked to your presence at home such as:
- Family members cooking in work period
- Tasks being performed in rest places, such as sofa, bed and armchairs
- Play with children, family members or pets
- Cell phones, social networks and conversation applications
How to solve?
Some factors are up to the employee to maintain order and identify points that can undermine their work and productivity, such as distractions, temptations related to food and procrastination, among others.
However, the minimum for a favorable work environment for a home office employee is the equipment for daily use, such as chairs, tables, computers, and lighting, with enough quality not to make a work villain, which should be an ally.
Providing equipment that meets a healthy and comfortable work environment to the employee can reduce most of the time, much of the problems of productivity and lack of focus.
4 - Are the rules different? Or are there no rules?
Not maintaining routines and rules is good initially, but it can be harmful if the employee has problems with discipline and tasks completed with effective and quality.
People responsible for supervising tasks in person, or encouraging this process to be done faster, may have lost their function, or should adapt everything to remote mode.
Work rules will possibly have to be magazines and especially presented to home office employees. Schedules, tasks and deadlines, permissions, meetings, questions, everything should be clear to everyone, in order to adapt to the new process, after all, there is a great difficulty of companies and managers to “control” actions, working time, access and permissions, among many other points, when work is remotely exercised.
How to solve?
Keeping controlled all remote access to the company's internal network by employees at home office, and blocking websites outside the scope of work, is an effective way to circumvent problems related to productivity and breach of rules.
In the market today there are several tools for internet access control as well as safe remote access, something really important, taking into account the growing cases of data theft and attacks on the network of large companies worldwide.
You can learn more about the theme in the Internet Access Control Guide to companies .
Do not leave the task of maintaining the company's data security, after all, the biggest harmed in this case is managers and employees themselves.
5 - Legislation
When it comes to remote work and legislation, labor reform calls the home office home office. This modality is framed the service provided outside the company's premises, which uses technological tools and whose nature is not characterized as external work.
To adapt the company to this work model, therefore, the organization must transform the activity of 'face -to -face' into 'teleworking'.
For this, the legislation basically determines that there must be an additive to the employment contract, signing all data regarding the change of modality and responsibilities, making the method legal and plausible implementation for employee and employer.
However, most companies do not have sufficient knowledge, or professional dedicated to verifying the data and creating such a document, leaving legislation factors to the merce of possible labor processes or problems with disoriented or malicious employees.
How to solve?
To help professionals, managers and entrepreneurs in the process of implementing the home office in companies, Lumun has developed a document model of the additive term to the employment contract for teleworking regime - Home Office .
The model is available for download and includes the necessary minimum information divided into clauses and can be edited, adding or removing relevant information to the company.
Download from the file and share it with colleagues or companies that also need it.
We know that many companies still face problems in some part of home office work, so we seek relevant information daily to help improve processes.
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