Top Tips for Working from Home

30 March 2020

Working From Home PDF

 

Many employees will now be working from home for the first time so here are some tips for helping you adjust to this style of working.

  1. Request a copy of your employers remote working policy and read it.
  2. Dress for work! It can be less casual than a face-to-face work meeting but it’s important to get your head in the right space for work.
  3. Start your working day at your normal working time. Do not work excessive hours. It is important not to burnout and to maintain a positive work-life balance.
  4. Try to create an appropriate workspace where you can have a degree of privacy (as hard as that might be with the kids off school or housemates working from home also).
  5. Try to set a few ground rules with people sharing your house, that could be family, friends or people you live with. Try to reasonably agree who is working where and be aware of each other’s hours of work.
  6. Check in with your line manager each morning, and afternoon. Chat about work updates but also how you are finding working from home.
  7. Check in with your colleagues regularly and try to maintain workplace socialising and chat via online tools. If anything, over-communicate with colleagues and your manager. Many are going to be in this situation for the first time.
  8. Take a 5 minute break from the screen every 50 minutes. Get up and walk around and take your eyes off of screens (don’t replace the work screen with Twitter!!)
  9. Take your breaks and eat your lunch away from the desk. Try to chat to those you share your living space with to maintain social contact (obviously within guidelines of health authorities on isolation and social distancing)
  10. Do not work excessive hours, finish at the end of the day. Remember your right to disconnect. It is important you maintain a work/life balance.
  11. And, if you are sick – call in sick and do not work from home. Just because you are home working doesn’t mean you should if you are not well.
  12. For many, this may have been a sudden change so you might not have got all of the right equipment from your employer. That is understandable in these circumstances but do talk to your line manager about getting equipment at some point as this is likely to continue for some time.

Keep following all Government and public health authority advice on COVID-19. If we stick together and act as a collective we can overcome this.